


Crossroad

by comingbacktoyou



Category: GOT7
Genre: Afterlife, Age Difference, But not REALLY Character Death, Character Death, False Identity, First Love, Grim Reapers, Love Confessions, M/M, Mystical Creatures, Time Skips, Tragic Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-05
Updated: 2018-10-05
Packaged: 2019-07-25 15:47:02
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 31,594
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16200644
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/comingbacktoyou/pseuds/comingbacktoyou
Summary: Jaebum's a newly appointed grim reaper and takes his role of escorting newly dead souls into the afterlife. But when an old man begs for Jaebum to ensure the son he left behind is taken care of — Jaebum is pushed into a scenario he never dreamt of.





	1. I

**Author's Note:**

  * For [gobokdong](https://archiveofourown.org/users/gobokdong/gifts).



> Hello, I'm so excited to be participating in this exchange !!! This prompt was really fun to get into and I liked messing around with it since there wasn't much to go off of. I hope my recipient likes where I've taken it, and I hope everyone else does too.
> 
> Now as a general warning, there is a good amount of death in this story and main character deaths are mentioned. But don't worry, it's the circle of life and the point of the story is that they have died and become other beings.
> 
> Another warning, loving someone through various stages of their life is something touched upon heavily in this story - from child to adult and so forth. It might make some people uncomfortable, but I wrote it to challenge your way of viewing love. There's nothing gross or underage, but it is different and I know some people may not take to it. But I implore you to open your mind and really think about the themes presented.
> 
> Lastly, I've made a playlist for you all to listen to while reading my story: [Crossroad](https://www.youtube.com/watch_videos?video_ids=XeM0lzQhigg,79fzeNUqQbQ,Bag1gUxuU0g,TzFnYcIqj6I,DxYyHHR0Q1c,95hfNjZictY,lY6Plb6Y6-Y,TvnYmWpD_T8,tt2k8PGm-TI,tGE381tbQa8,8jzDnsjYv9A,PSoOFn3wQV4,1w7OgIMMRc4,WQQJ7zBzYJs,FxYw0XPEoKE,fjpaZQwr30I,3ByIYof4mqo,8VNV__mV38s,OMD8hBsA-RI,m_9hfHvQSNo,xtTy9wVU_5c,VdQY7BusJNU,BS7tz2rAOSA,1y6smkh6c-0,)

Death isn’t cold. Or hot. Or warm. There’s really no temperature at all.

It isn’t wet or dry, euphoric or bland, eye-opening or nerve-settling.

Death is just… Death.

At least it is for Im Jaebum.

When the time comes, I.V. in arm surrounded by the paralyzing white walls of the hospital room knowing he’d never make it past the age of twenty four, burdened with the final stages of ever-spreading pancreatic cancer, there’s only so much he feels.

He feels his mom, clutching his hand as her tears dry against his bed. His dad stands behind her, head in his hands, holding back a bated breath as he awaits what’s coming. Around them the jaded beeping from the machines synced to his heartbeat begins to slow.

It only takes a few minutes, and then he’s gone.

Jaebum doesn’t see the grandiose “white light” mentioned on tv and in films. In fact nothing around him indicates he’s entered the pearly gates of a heaven he’s dreamed of.

He’s still in the hospital, lying lifelessly along the itchy bedding the interns aren’t paid enough to wash daily. His parents remain at his bedside, sobbing harder and harder as the seconds tick on. Jaebum vaguely registers a shrill noise echoing along the walls, but he pays it no mind.

At least the pain is gone, as he fully registers his new body, and Jaebum breathes the freshest sigh of relief since he’d been diagnosed three years ago. His new self seems to float freely above the ground, but his conscious remains. He watches his own body, now a lifeless corpse - sunken grey eyes, bleak skin, colorless fingernails, breathing tube tied to his mouth once he’d ceased breathing on his own weeks ago - and tries to remember how he used to be before his life came crashing down in an instant.

There’s satisfaction there, about him finally moving on to a better place than he used to be. He can finally be at peace, mentally and physically. However he’s deeply worried about his parents - how they’ll go on without him.

As his mother clings to his empty shell her face grows more distorted with gut-wracking sobs that forces his father to remove her from the room until the doctors can come in to escort the body away.

Jaebum is frozen to the spot as his parents break down in agony, their only son lost to a battle within himself. He reaches forward, hoping to comfort his mother, to let her know he’s alright. Only, his hand goes right through her hair and she doesn’t feel it, doesn't even blink. He’s lost the ability of touch.

“You can’t do that.” Comes from across the hospital corridor, the voice belonging to a petite man no older than Jaebum used to be. He wears a dark coat that hangs to his knees with regular human clothes, his brown hair swept up neatly and cheekbones beautifully chiseled. “You can’t touch them anymore.”

Jaebum remains weary of the stunning stranger. “You can see me?”

“Of course I can see you,” this man nods, taking two steps forward. “I can see everybody.”

In the background, the sounds of his parents’ sobs bleed out. “W-who are you?”

The cloaked stranger licks his lips pensively before shrugging his shoulders.

“My name is Mark,” he says. “I’m the reaper sent to deliver you to your fate.”

Breath hitching, Jaebum almost doesn’t believe him. Reapers, _the_ Grim Reaper wouldn’t be some handsome man sent to lead him into the afterlife, would he? They’ve been depicted as bony skeletons in black robes and holding pointed scythes, bringing about death wherever they go. This _Mark_ looked more like a guardian angel than a reaper, but then again, this world is all new to him. Jaebum is dead, he’s best off trusting this reaper’s words for truth. He gulps, hoping the big guy upstairs will overlook the attitude he gave his parents as a kid and all the minor offenses he racked up in high school.

“Are you going to take me to heaven?” He asks genuinely, turning to see the hospital corridor empty, his parents nowhere to be found. His face falls; he didn’t even get to say goodbye. “Where did everyone go?”

“Time works differently around here.” Mark explains with a small smile, despite Jaebum’s worried face. “One minute here is a few hours there. It’ll take some time getting used to.”

Jaebum’s eyebrows knit together in confusion. “But where are we? I am dead, right?”

“You are, and I’m truly sorry. You no longer exist in the natural world. This is the plane of existence, created by the Powers That Be. Here you’re neither dead nor alive, you just drift.”

“I-I don’t understand,” Jaebum stutters, not hearing correctly. His brain must be foggy from the whole dying thing. “Is this heaven?”

Mark sighs, lifting his hand to where both of them can see it. His palm is facing up, allowing Jaebum to look down as something grows inside of it. It’s small at first, increasing in size as he watches. Within seconds there’s a palm-sized matted brown book held out to him, Mark eyeing it like it’s a treasure within itself.

“This will tell you everything you need to know.” Mark gestures for him to take it, and warrily, Jaebum obliges. “I’m sorry I can’t be of more help to you now, but just know I’ll be around when you need it.”

Jaebum lets the book fall to his side, lost in a depth of unanswered questions. “But I don’t understand-”

“It’s all in the book,” Mark reiterates, spinning on his heel. He turns back before Jaebum can let anything else fly out of his mouth. “They chose you for this. It’s not ideal, but it is necessary. Good luck.”

Stunned into silence by the lack of clarity, Jaebum finds his eyes falling to the hardcover publication sitting uneasy in his hand. “But how do I-?”

The reaper has vanished into thin air, leaving Jaebum to wonder if he was even there to begin with. By himself once more, Jaebum is now even more lost than he was when he was still breathing. He looks to the book, a flash of the morbid cover art - a young man lying in bed just a Jaebum just was, overlooked by a hooded figure towering over him - stares back at him, like it’s calling his name. He can almost hear the whispers that speak to him as he holds it. Before, Jaebum had felt nothing in this plane of existence, but now he feels alive again, the leather buzzing between his fingertips.

He reads the dark cursive scroll that dances across the cover seamlessly, eyes glossing over.

_The Reaper._

***

 ** _2000_**.

La mort. Los Muertos. The fourth horseman of the apocalypse. The angel of death.

A Reaper.

That is what lies in the path of destiny for Im Jaebum.

Contrary to popular belief, a reaper is not death personified, and certainly not the bringer of death itself. Reapers do not take lives, no, that decision is made by the Powers That Be when a single life has reached the end of its time. Reapers are assigned to those whose hourglasses have run out, and when the sands of time have cleared through the basins, the reaper will escort the soul of the dead into the afterlife.

The Powers That Be, what other religions would consider _God_ , are the most powerful beings in the whole of existence. No one knows where they came from or how long they’ve been here, but it’s widely known that the Powers created the universe and run things within it. They giveth and they taketh away with little to no resistance.

In the afterlife, most souls are transported to their heaven, or perhaps their unique idea of heaven, where they are free from pain, torture, and any sins of the soul. Others, the most unfortunate of the lot, are guided to the darkest realm in all the cosmos and left to rot away for all eternity facing mandated punishment determined by the Powers That Be.

Some of those who die on the other hand, are handpicked by the powers themselves and given very important jobs to keep the cosmos in natural balance. Some become ghouls, locked away in their orbital plane neither in one world nor the other. Others are left as gatekeepers between the astral realms to keep the right things in and the wrong things out. Few become angels to do the bidding of the Powers That Be, and the rest, like Jaebum, become reapers with individual tasks each day.

It was hard for Jaebum to understand at first as he read through the reaper handbook, unable to accept the new life he was given to lead. He understood the importance of the job, because without it, millions of souls would be lost to roam the astral realm for the rest of eternity, either as ghosts stuck where they passed or some things much, much worse. He wouldn’t wish that for anybody.

But at the same time, he wishes he wasn’t chosen for this role. When he was alive and strapped to the hospital bed with needles strung through his entire body, he imagined a heaven with peace and comfort, where he could relax until the end of times with family members and friends that had already passed, waiting for the moment the rest would join them.

As he’s assigned to this new role in the universe, he can’t help but feel disappointed with the Powers That Be that he won’t have such a chance for a long time. It’s not a position he’ll be forced to hold forever, as stated in the handbook, but it seems indefinite, and only the Powers That Be can determine when your servitude is complete. When, _if_ that happens, Jaebum will finally be able to move on to his heaven. It’s not supposed to feel like a prison sentence, but Jaebum can’t help but feel trapped in a contract he never officially signed.

Much of this undead life he’s had to navigate on his own with only answers to be found in the reaper’s handbook. The first chapter goes into detail about his new life and why reapers are essential in the balance of things, while the second details the proper process for delivering a soul to the afterlife. It’s simple enough - find the deceased, help them accept their death, and show them the way to where their fate lies.

Any questions Jaebum has about the process are answered by Mark when he _rarely_ shows up to offer him a hand, explaining the busy schedule of a reaper makes it difficult to do anything. Mark is nice and offering of advice, but it still doesn’t prepare Jaebum for each and every job he has to complete.

It takes some getting used to, the influx of souls that need delivering, but Jaebum quickly adjusts because it’s all he can do. There’s no life on earth for him and no place further on. There’s no amount of preparation that can aide him before he’s sent on a mission, and even as he reaches the sixth life that week, he still feels uneasy watching their body crumple beneath them.

When someone’s life is about to come to an end, their respective reaper is shown their image and given a countdown timer, times ranging anywhere from two minutes to two months. The reaper then has that amount of time to reach them before they die, and then proceed to escort their soul to the afterlife. If a reaper does not reach their soul in time, the dead is left to wander the plane of existence for all eternity, lost and confused.

The first soul Jaebum takes is from an elderly woman alone in her rocking chair at home. She suffers a heart attack while she sleeps, and miraculously it doesn’t disturb her slumber. Her death is relatively peaceful, and when her soul awakens and finds Jaebum standing before her in his own dark coat, she smiles in acceptance and takes his hand. He leads her to her heaven, but doesn’t stick around to watch.

The second soul wasn’t as easy. The man was in his early thirties and had his whole life ahead of him. Jaebum reached his body moments before he was struck across the back of the head with a brick and robbed blindly. He wished there was something he could do to help, but as a reaper he’s been stripped of the privilege of touch, so he was left to watch on in gut-wrenching pity. The man, whose name he discovers is Taecyeon, had a wife and a baby girl on the way. He’ll never get to meet his baby girl or see his lover ever again, and as he sobbed into Jaebum’s legs while he fell to his knees in agony, patting the departed’s head was all Jaebum could do to stop himself from joining his tears.

Jaebum’s delivered heart attacks, gunshot wounds, aneurysms, and a cancer patient just like himself. He’s yet to deliver a child, and prays he can hold it off as long as possible. Each body he sees fills him with an unerasable melancholy, so he doesn’t have any interest in facing an innocent child’s soul any time soon.

Luckily, his next case isn’t any of the sort.

In his short week as a reaper Jaebum’s learned that he can filter between planes, if he so chooses. He can walk the earth when he wants, but he remains unseen by the living. In times between jobs when he relaxes and closes his eyes, he can disappear seemingly from existence, only brought back when someone new needs delivering.

His new case brings him back into the human realm; a flash of the man he’s sent to collect crawls across his eyes. He’s middle aged, at least forty, buttoned up in a grey business suit and slacks descending through the doors of an office building in downtown Jinhae. He walks with confidence, most likely having just closed an important deal. It’s closing in on eight p.m., the moon shining in the night sky above.

As he slides into his SUV and revs the engine, Jaebum knows immediately it’s going to be a horrific crash that takes the man’s life. Due to the raging carelessness of a drunk driver the man isn’t the only one whose life will be taken, and Jaebum wonders which reaper will be assigned to the second victim.

As he arrives on the scene, it’s by far the goriest death he’s seen yet. His soul, Park Wooyoung, hangs halfway through the windshield of his car, glass shattered around his waist where it digs into his bloody side. His face is caked with blood as red as wine and his eyes are glossy and fleeting. Jaebum’s missed most of the accident thankfully, but Park Wooyoung hasn’t died yet, leaving him to watch helplessly as the last of the color leaves his face.

It’s painful, Jaebum knows, even if his death was nothing compared to this. But it will all be over soon, and the man will no longer feel anything at all.

Across the street where the other car sits busted at the front, the driver sits back with a grunt, bruised skull against the headrest. He had run the red light, colliding headfirst into the other car. Jaebum looks to the seat next to him and wishes there was something he could do, cursing the recklessness of the driver. Because of his actions, the young woman in the passenger seat will also be dead within minutes.

“It’s a shame.”

A familiar voice rings out next to Jaebum. He startles to find Mark beside him, hands in his pockets with a face of gloom. He must be the second reaper sent to deliver the woman.

“It is,” Jaebum agrees, tracing back to where his scheduled soul is finding its way out of his body. He’s trembling and scared, a normal reaction considering all that has occurred, so Jaebum does what he’s still working on and tries to deliver the news as easy as possible. To the side Mark bids him farewell as his own soul begins rising, rushing to her side to take her hand.

“W-what’s going on?” Park Wooyoung stutters, eyes frantically searching the air around him, almost a mirror image of Jaebum’s own passing. “Where am I? Who are you?”

Jaebum calms his nerves, lifting his comforting hand out for the man to take. “My name is Jaebum, Wooyoung-ssi. I’m here to deliver you to the afterlife.”

The man startles. “The afterlife? You mean I’m-?” He finds himself turning towards the gruesome scene and taking in the sight of his mangled body, despite his age he's still too young to be taken so soon. “I’m dead? I’m dead.”

He seems to accept it easy enough, so Jaebum’s job gets a little more fashionable. “I’m very sorry, Wooyoung-ssi. But if you’ll follow me, I can escort you to where you will be much happier-”

“No, wait!” The middle-aged man cries, holding his hands out as Jaebum steps closer. “My son. My son, he’s-” The man starts, air caught in his lungs as he forces himself to form a proper sentence. “He has no one now!”

Hands trembling, Wooyoung buries his face in them as he struggles to breathe. This is the part Jaebum hated most, the pained realization of definite solitude, away from those once loved with their memories of the one left behind in the real world to rot away.

Jaebum feels sorry for him, he truly does. If there was anything he could do to make it all better, he would. The reality was he was just a simple reaper, a beginner one at that, and his only job was to deliver the dead to their awaited fate. He gives the old man some time, knowing there’s nothing he can do but wait until he’s ready to go.

He doesn’t expect the next string of words that exits his mouth.

“You have to watch over him!”

Jaebum does a double take, lost in the jarring words that Park Wooyoung brings forth. “I can’t-”

“No, please! You don’t understand!” Wooyoung now sobs openly, hot tears rolling down his cheeks. “He has no one left. His mother has already passed and we have no other family. I need you to make sure he’ll be okay!”

“Wooyoung-ssi, I don’t know if I-”

“I beg of you!” The elder falls to his knees, colliding with the hard rubble. His left hand curls around the end of Jaebum’s black coat while the other slips into the pocket of his slacks. Around them the expected string of red and blue lights illuminate the air, but they fall into the faded background along with the paramedics rushing to the scene. “I beg you, Jaebum-ssi, as a dead man’s final wish, to look out for my little Jinyoungie.”

Slipping out from his pocket Wooyoung acquires a small faded rectangle of crumpled paper. He holds it out to Jaebum who reluctantly takes it after more seconds of begging, feeling the man’s words striking a chord within whatever’s left of his soul.

He turns the paper over to find an image of a small boy playing in his bedroom, covered head to toe in footy pajamas while typical boy-like toys lay scattered around him. He cheeses up at the camera with a smile that sends a chill down Jaebum’s spine, wondering why he feels so drawn to it all of the sudden. The child cannot be more than six, with chubby cheeks and ears that stick out more than normal. He’s cute for sure, and it hits Jaebum then as Wooyoung sobs into his coat that this adorable little boy will be all alone with no one to turn to.

He’s too young to understand the complexities of death, but not young enough to glimpse over his father suddenly disappearing from his life. He doesn’t deserve that - no one does.

Maybe it’s because Jaebum knows the torture of leaving someone behind that gets him to agree, this father leaving his son like Jaebum had left his own father after the tragedy of his death. Or maybe it’s because a faint tune plays softly in the air as he glances at the child’s image, one that beckons him forward like a calm lullaby bringing him peace of mind. Either way, it makes the decision for him.

“I’ll take care of your Jinyoungie.” The words leave his mouth before he has a chance to stop them, caught up in the emotions running all over the place, the man left in tears clutching onto him, and the child he now feels protective over in the strangest of ways. “I promise.”

The old man smiles in his gratitude as Jaebum stores the photograph in his pocket for later. He delivers Park Wooyoung to his wife in their shared heaven where they can finally be at peace together.

The next soul pops up on Jaebum’s radar, but he’s got plenty of time to find the young woman before her death in a few hours. Right now there’s a picture burning a hole in his pocket and a child he’s made a promise to look after waiting for his father to come home.

***

Ever since his three-year long battle with cancer, Jaebum has hated hospitals. They’re cold, silent, smell too deeply of rubbing alcohol, and harbor a mess of bodies lying awake at night wondering when the end will come. Jaebum was once that body, the flashbacks of his life before swirling back to him as he traces the halls of Jinhae Methodist.

 _“You’re not supposed to do that.”_ Mark had said as Jaebum left Park Wooyoung at the gates of his heaven. _“We’re not allowed to promise things to the dead. Our job is to find them, deliver them, and move onto the next.”_

As Jaebum navigates the hallways, bypassing doctors in a hurry and nurses delivery medicines, he can’t help but ignore the worry laced in Mark’s speech. While Jaebum doesn’t know exactly what he’s gotten himself into by promising to watch over a child (something he doesn’t even know if he can keep), he knows there’s nothing against it in the reaper handbook. Mentions of what they can do in their off time are vague, so as long as this promise doesn’t interfere with his work, he thinks he can swing it.

The body of Park Wooyoung is delivered to the hospital morgue immediately after the paramedics arrive on the scene. His son, however, arrives blearily a little past ten pm in tow with his babysitter, a teenage girl whose makeup has smudged from the minutes spent crying.

The child, no older than six years old, seems to have no idea what’s going on. He’s tired and strung out, likely woken up from his slumber by the woman holding onto his hand tightly. He rubs the sleep out of his eyes with a chubby fist, and it hits Jaebum then how young the boy is. He’s barely a toddler, having already lost his mother and now being thrown into a world without his father. He has no one else, no other family around and no family friends that could take him in.

The faint tune he'd heard earlier now sings sweetly in his ear, and Jaebum’s determined to help the child out in any way possible.

The doctor’s and police arrive shortly, along with a woman who looks to be a child services agent. They tell the babysitter the tragic news and watch as her face falls, giving her some time to dry her tears before they even begin to deliver the news to the child.

The boy, Park Jinyoung, quiet but alert, clings to his babysitter’s pant legs and begs her to stop crying.

“What’s wrong Suzy noona?” He peers up at her innocently through his small lashes, worried for her even at such a young age. “Why are you sad?”

Tucking her tears back Suzy crouches down to Jinyoung’s level and sighs, hands coming up to rest at his shoulders. She’s not prepared for this. “Jinyoungie,” her voice breaks upon exit. “I’m so sorry. It’s your appa. There was an accident and he was hurt very badly.”

The young boy’s eyes widen in alarm, voice coming out in frantic puffs of air. “But he’s going to be okay, right? Appa’s strong, if he’s hurt he’ll get well soon.”

“Jinyoungie,” Suzy sighs, tears clouding her vision once more. She brushes the mop of black hair back and off of Jinyoung’s forehead lovingly. “Your appa didn’t survive the accident, he was hurt too badly. I’m so sorry.”

Hands wringing together at his stomach, Jaebum sees the exact moment little Park Jinyoung’s world comes crashing down around him.

“He’s dead?” Jinyoung gasps, shooting out defensively. “No! He can’t die! Appa said he was strong and that nothing could hurt him!” Chest beginning to rise and fall at a rapid pace, Jinyoung’s labored breathing echoes throughout the hallway with the high-pitched broken whine emitted from the back of his throat. “No! No! No!” His small brown eyes fill to the brim with hot tears that spill over onto his puffy pink cheeks, and neither Suzy nor the doctors are able to stop it.

Scared of causing a scene in the middle of the hallway Suzy tugs Jinyoung into her arms and holds him soundly, burying his tear-stained face into her shoulder. Above them, the doctors and the child services worker are speaking to her once more.

Jaebum isn’t paying attention to their details, focused on the little boy sobbing brokenly into the woman’s arms. Though he no longer has a beating heart strapped to his chest, tucked away in the shell of what he once was, Jaebum feels the rawness as it shatters.

Suzy picks the boy up and holds him in her arms as his legs come to wrap around her waist. She pets his hair in comfort, and Jaebum suddenly grows jealous of the sight. He wishes he could run over and comfort the child too, tell him everything will be okay now that he’s here. But Jaebum has lost the privilege of touch, and he is nothing more than a ghost to this child.

The timer for his next soul gets closer and closer to the ending mark, which means Jaebum must leave the boy now. They won’t be apart for long - he’ll find him again soon - but there’s an ache in his chest as he turns to leave, a small pain no reaper is supposed to feel.

Jaebum takes one last look at the boy before he sets off and freezes to the spot. Jinyoung’s face is no longer hiding in Suzy’s shoulder, instead peering over it in Jaebum’s direction. His breath hitches as their eyes seem to meet beyond the walls of the hospital wing. Jinyoung is no longer crying, a curious look sketching its way onto his face as he stares.

The soul’s timer reaches its last couple minutes and forces Jaebum to spin away, ignoring the way Jinyoung had almost seemed to watch him. There was no way that was possible, as it was stated he could not be seen or heard by the living. Still, there’s a heavy feeling weighing him down as he delivers the young woman’s soul to grandparents in heaven.

***

Jaebum knows he’s not supposed to meddle in people’s lives. It’s not necessarily a rule in the handbook, but it is well know that you _don’t_ intervene in human affairs. At this point, he can’t help himself, already in too deep with a promise he’s bound to his soul.

Drifting into a peaceful dreamland after the whirlwind of emotions that berated him at the hospital from learning of his father’s passing, Park Jinyoung sleeps soundly in his bed for what will likely be the last time. Suzy had offered to stay the night with him so he would be comfortable, and in the morning the child services worker will attain the boy and send him to a new home.

At the opposite end of the room, Jaebum leans against the window, illuminated by the glowing crescent of the moon. The same song from the hospital drifts in like a breeze, Jaebum’s ears drawn to the serenity it brings. He gazes at Jinyoung with a fond look upon his face, eyes stuck on the tranquille rise and fall of his tiny chest, a drastic opposition to the panic he showed earlier in the night. Jaebum dares to step closer, making his way to the bed and sitting along the zoo animal comforter.

Restfully snoozing, Jaebum wishes when Jinyoung wakes up he snap his fingers and in an instant take the pain away. However unlikely that is, he can at least let the boy’s father rest easy knowing there’ll be something looking out for him.

Tentatively, Jaebum lifts his hand from his lap and tugs it towards the child’s head, fully expecting the normal sensation of his hand falling through. To his ultimate surprise, the tips of his fingers skate along Jinyoung’s black strands and he flinches back, as if he’s been burned. He glances around to make sure he’s not imagining things before bringing his hand back to brush through the child’s hair carefully. The sensation it brings Jaebum as the soft strands cascade through his fingers brings him back to the life he once lived, having forgotten about what it could feel like to be human in the weeks since his passing.

There’s only one question that runs through his mind. _Why this boy, of all people?_

There’s most likely an answer for why he can touch the boy nestled deep within the handbook, but he doesn’t dwell on it yet. Instead Jaebum welcomes the feeling happily, wishing the child is dreaming of wondrous things so he can hold off on dealing with the real world for a little while longer. Heart thumping with affection as he watches Jinyoung, Jaebum has no time to wonder why his heart yearns for the boy so intricately when his eyes flutter just barely, and his torso shifts.

Jaebum removes his hand in shock and distances himself from the bed in three easy steps, breath caught in his chest as the child blinks a few times and sits up, eyes fixated in Jaebum’s general direction.

“Who are you?” Jinyoung yawns, rubbing the sleep away from his eyes.

Jaebum’s mouth dries up instantly. He has to glance behind him, just in case there was someone else in the room. There's not. “Y-you can see me?”

“Of course I can see you,” Jinyoung nods in concern. “You’re the man from the hospital.”

 _You’re the man from the hospital._ So Jaebum was right, the boy did see him. But how? Quiet for a moment, Jaebum thinks perhaps the answer is tied to the reason he can also touch the kid without hesitation.

“You saw me at the hospital.” Jaebum states, oddly intrigued. “No one else saw me.”

Jinyoung doesn’t seem alarmed to have a strange man hiding in the shadows of his room, meaning he mustn’t have been taught about stranger danger yet.

“I saw you disappear too,” Jinyoung perks up, full of an interest in Jaebum the same way he is with him. “Why can’t other people see you? Are you a ghost?”

A shy smile breaks Jaebum’s face. “No, I’m not a ghost. I’m-” He cuts himself off. How was he to explain this to a child? And a child that had just experienced his first dose of human trauma at that?

“I’m a grim reaper that was sent to collect your father’s soul and deliver him to heaven, and he’s asked me to look after you,” he could say, but there’s so much Jinyoung wouldn’t be able to understand. Reaper’s already have a bad rep, there’s no way to make himself seem not evil to the boy before him.

“I’m here to watch over you.” He tries instead. Perhaps in the future when Jinyoung is ready, Jaebum would tell him the truth. “You’re appa asked me to take care of you while he’s gone. He wanted me to tell you he loves you a lot.”

Waiting for the inevitable look of grief to appear, Jaebum is pleasantly surprised to see Jinyoung’s face perk up in a small grin. “I love appa too! But if appa asked you to… ? Well then that must means…!” Straying from a full sentence Jinyoung detangles his legs from his comforter to stand on his bed and crawl across to the headrest. Looking above his bed, the child points to a small porcelain wall decoration hanging before them.

Jaebum takes a step closer to get a better look in the dark, but his eyes register the image of a beautiful woman in a long white robe, right hand clutching a golden harp. Two stunning white wings flow from either side of her, and to top it all off, above her head sits a glowing gold halo. _Oh no._

“You must be my guardian angel!” Jinyoung bounces down excitedly, gazing up at Jaebum likes he’s some magical figure to behold.

There aren’t any words Jaebum can find that will make this okay. He’s not angel, the exact opposite in reality. But Jinyoung didn’t need to know that. He didn’t need to know who and _what_ Jaebum was yet, as long as he felt like he had someone looking out for him.

“You’re right,” Jaebum lies, hating the way it tastes on his tongue. But he has no other choice. Jinyoung settles back down on his bed, leaving a generous amount of space for Jaebum to sit. He takes the gesture as an okay, finding comfort once again as he guides himself back onto the bed. “I’m your guardian angel, and no matter what happens, I’ll alway be around to watch over you.”

For a six year old, Jinyoung understands well. Before Jaebum can see it coming, Jinyoung flings himself into his arms and wraps his tiny arms around his neck. Stunned into silence, it takes a moment for Jaebum to catch his breath before he’s snaking his own hands around the toddler and reciprocating the hug. It’s warm and satisfying, and for even the briefest of seconds, makes Jaebum feel as if he is alive again. Maybe, just maybe, this little boy was a part of his final destiny.

The toddler lets go too quickly and pulls back to maintain a few feet of distance, Jaebum already missing the contact.

“When my eomma died, appa told me she became my guardian angel and would always look over me. But since you’re my angel, I guess it means she’s watching over some other little boy.” Jinyoung looks on forlornly, but soon his face of disappointment is replaced by one of understanding. “But that’s okay! It means that that little boy has someone watching him too, and I know my eomma will take good care of him.”

“She will.” Jaebum gulps, wondering if in some far off universe that could be true. Jinyoung's optimism could grow on him, making him smile generously already. He brushes the bangs out of the child’s eyes. “But I’ll take good care of you too. Anytime you need me, I’ll come. Just pray, and your guardian angel Jaebum will find you.”

Jinyoung lights up with joy, giving Jaebum one last hug that has them both chuckling out loud. When the boy pulls back, the third soul of the night flashes across Jaebum’s eyes and realizes that soon, he’ll need to be departing.

Lifting the animal covers, Jaebum tucks Jinyoung back into bed like he’s rolling a burrito, which makes the boy laugh even harder. Jaebum shushes him, warning that they’ll wake up Suzy if they aren’t careful.

“I have to go soon, Jinyoung-ah,” Jaebum informs, hating the way Jinyoung’s face falls. “But I’ll be there whenever you need me.”

Jinyoung snuggles into the blankets as he makes himself comfortable. “Can you stay until I fall asleep like appa did?”

The flash of the elderly woman soon to pass flashes across his mind again. _Fifteen minutes._ He had time, Jinyoung already yawning dreamily into his pillows.

“Of course.”

Brushing back the boy’s hair one last time, Jaebum fights back feelings of tenderness and waits until Jinyoung’s chest falls into a steady rhythm before he fades back into the night.

***

The more Jaebum becomes in tune with his reaper duties, the more he finds he’s better at it. Rarely does he transport a soul to the gates of hell for retribution, but there have been few, on occasion. They’re the worst of the bunch - mass murderers, rapists, child predators, cult leaders -whom the Powers That Be have passed judgement upon in the worst of ways. Jaebum hates those moments the most - when he meets someone bent for hell - but because he’s getting more seasoned, their deaths don’t bother him as much as they once did.

The delivering of souls becomes a norm in Jaebum’s life - _death_ \- or whatever this moment of purgatory is.

The other new norm in his life comes in the form of a small child that calls to him when he’s needed most. And by needed most, that generally means when the six year old Park Jinyoung is out of colors.

Jaebum’s kept a close eye on him from a distance, but when Jaebum told the child to “call him whenever he needed him”, he naively believed Jinyoung would only do so in emergency situations. He figured there’d be times of bullying, or fear of the unknown when he was placed into foster care with four other children, even when he was missing his parents.

But Park Jinyoung is an interesting child.

The first time he calls to Jaebum after that night, Jinyoung’s kneeling at the edge of his bed in a room he shares with his youngest foster brother, Yugyeom. His hands are bound together in prayer, and even though his belief is he’s reaching out to an angel, Jaebum still hears his call. It’s been five days since their first meeting, and Jaebum frets for the safety of the child if he’s calling so late into the night.

Only when Jaebum arrives, it’s to his confusion as Jinyoung smiles with his full set of adult teeth, running up to embrace Jaebum where he meets his waist. Jaebum would be lying if he said he wasn’t excited to see the boy too.

“Jaebummie hyung!” Jinyoungs scream echoes throughout the room, and the _shhh_ that escapes Jaebum’s mouth is all he has to remind the boy that they aren’t alone. Luckily the second kid, _Yugyeom_ , only rolls over to face the other side of the room in his sleep. Jinyoung smiles in shame, lowering his voice to a whisper. “Oops.”

Detangling Jinyoung’s arms from him with a smile, Jaebum crouches to his eye level. There doesn’t seem to be anything drastically necessary from him yet, so Jaebum lets the worry clear out of his system. “Hello Jinyoung-ah, how have you been?”

“I’m okay,” he responds. “I miss my appa alot, but the Kims are taking care of me now and I have four new brothers. I get to sleep with Yugyeomie, he’s only three.”

“And how do you like it here?”

Jaebum knows the tales about foster care, heard the horror stories. Some, but not all, foster homes are riddled with terrible care and parents who are only in it for the money. He wants to make sure that’s not the case.

Jinyoung shrugs innocently. “It’s nice, so far. It’s not my old home, but I still like it,” he ends with a genuine smile. “Jackson is six too so we go to school and play outside together. Youngjae doesn’t talk much, and BamBam and Yugyeom are really loud. But they give me some of their snacks at snack time so it’s okay.”

“I’m very glad to hear that you like it here.” Jaebum ruffles the six year old’s hair with a sweet chuckle, glad that he no longer has to worry. He foresees Jinyoung growing up just fine here and will fit right in with the other boys. “Now, is there something you needed, Jinyoungie?”

The effect of his words is instantaneous, Jinyoung’s face lighting up dramatically. “I almost forgot!” He screams in a whisper, running to the side of the bed and diving under. When he appears, it’s with a hand sized purple bag made out of velvet. Then suddenly, he scatters its contents on the carpet and watches as they roll around. “I want to play marbles, but everyone else is a sleep. Will you play with me?”

Jaebum’s eyes land on the crystal spheres and he slips onto his knees, dumbstruck. Jinyoung doesn’t look the least bit phased, in fact he seems genuinely concerned there’s no one awake to play with him. This wasn’t exactly what Jaebum meant when he said he’d come around.

“Yah, Jinyoung-ah. When I said call me when you need it, I meant for emergencies only.”

“But this is an emergency!” Jinyoung informs, picking a marble up from the floor. “No one can play with me.”

As much of a conundrum as it is, Jaebum can’t help but grin down at the boy, amazed by his innocence when it comes to such things. He is a child, after all. He doesn’t need much but a friend to call his own, and he’s determined Jaebum can be that when he needs it.

Jaebum takes the marble as they’re handed to him, but before he can roll into their game a person’s face flashes across his eyes. His name is Lee Junho and he’s got only five minutes before he’ll drop dead of poisoning. He’s already taken the killer’s bait, and it digests slowly as the poison drifts into his bloodstream. He'd made an enemy out of himself most likely with his money laundering.

“Jinyoung-ah, you should be sleeping like everyone else, you have school tomorrow.” Both his and Jinyoung’s faces fall, and he hates to see the disappointment, even if it’s for something as small as marbles.

“But-”

“No buts.” He stands and lets the marbles tumble from his cold dead fingers. “We can play tomorrow, I’ll come back after you come home from school, okay? Right now good little boys need to go to sleep.”

Pouting, Jinyoung bends over to roll the marbles back into the pouch. “Okay, Hyungie. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

Distraught and feeling like he’s just let the boy down, Jaebum gives him a quick goodbye hug as he tucks Jinyoung into bed. To get Jinyoung smiling just a little bit, he holds his pinky out. “Promise you won’t play marbles with anyone but me? Not even Jackson?”

A bright smile erupts on Jinyoung’s face, and he meets Jaebum with his tiny finger, barely half the length of Jaebum’s own.

“I promise.”

The sight makes Jaebum swell with a warm glow, and as he leaves in a hurry to fetch his next soul, he wonders if he’s upset the Powers That Be by making another promise for this young boy.

***

Like he’d promised, Jaebum visits Jinyoung the next day and giggles with him as they roll the marbles around in the backyard. It is utterly pleasurable, and watching Jinyoung enjoying himself is a greater sight to behold than any game he might have won.

It becomes a thing, this child in his life, whether he expected it to carve out so much time or a place in his heart or not. Jinyoung calls on him for just about anything - to play, to talk when he’s got no one else to listen - and despite Jaebum being busy enough with his reaper duties, he always finds time to come see Jinyoung even if it’s just for a few minutes.

He learns that Jinyoung has a song, a pretty little piano filled symphony that plays whenever the boy is near. Jaebum doesn’t know where it comes from, but the harmonic keys fill him with a sense of hope, leaving him bathed in high spirits.

When Jinyoung is in the mood to chat, the pair will talk about his family, his friends, how second grade is going, and what he wants to be when he grows up (a teacher, which Jaebum finds adorable). Jinyoung has asked on occasion about Jaebum’s life and what else he does as an angel, but there’s still no way Jaebum can tell him the truth. He hates lying, but doesn’t want Jinyoung to fear him either.

Marbles becomes their game. There’s really no set rules to it (unless Jinyoung feels creative and makes completely random ones on the spot, like every marble that’s hit the loser will owe the winner an ice cream cone), and they like it that way. Neither of them actually win in the game, but sometimes they’ll just sit around for a while flicking the crystals back and forth for hours, simmering in the light of each other’s company.

Not often Jinyoung will ask for help on his homework, some that Jaebum doesn’t even remember how to give. The last time he touched a school textbook was four years ago, back when he wasn’t sick and could actually stay in university. He was studying to become a composer.

There’s other times too, quiet times, after all the foster children in his house have gone to bed that Jinyoung will pray for him to come with only the promise of Jaebum waiting with him as he falls asleep. It brings Jinyoung a piece of security, and it brings Jaebum some peace of mind reveling in the knowledge he’s not just needed to deliver souls. He can be something else.

It’s not an everyday occurrence, them spending time together. Maybe a few times a week, whenever Jinyoung needs him. Mostly it’s when Jinyoung prays for him, but other times, a select few, is when Jaebum senses something is truly wrong.

He showed up out of the blue one day when the Kim foster family was playing at the park. Busy with the other four boys, Mrs. Kim missed when Jinyoung had fallen off the swingset and busted his knee up badly. From where Jaebum was delivering a child to his heaven (his first one at that, which he hadn’t been all that prepared for) he had heard Jinyoung’s cry like a clap of thunder in a storm. He rushed to his side immediately to offer assistance, hands covering the bloody scrape while Jinyoung cried. He watched Jinyoung’s face twist excitedly as Jaebum removed his palms and the cut was gone like it had never been there in the first place.

Another instance was when Jinyoung was being bullied by a few other kids in his class, the immature six year olds taunting his larger ears and throwing around words like “dumbo” and “freak”. Jinyoung was sulking into his desk as the teacher (who didn’t pay much mind to the student’s hateful interactions) taught her lesson on the chalkboard. Something to do with fractions, but Jaebum paid it no mind as he appeared next to Jinyoung’s desk in a flash with his signature black coat, urging the second grader to be silent as he worked his magic.

Jinyoung couldn’t stop giggling the whole time as Jaebum approached the two main bullies, Im Nayeon and Lee Jooheon, smacking their composition books right off their conjoined desks. For Jinyoung and himself, Jaebum was just throwing stuff around. But to everyone else including the teacher, it was as if a ghost had entered their classroom. Now obviously they were kids too, foolish but with room for growth, and Jaebum wouldn’t dare hurt them. He just wanted to make them see that Jinyoung was not to be messed with.

As the kids screamed and all attention turned towards them, Jaebum ran to the front of the room and snatched the piece of chalk from Mrs. Jung’s hand.

He winked at Jinyoung. “Watch this.”

With the piece of chalk seeming to levitate through the air, Jaebum guided the white stick along the blackboard in his best handwriting, listening to the gasps emitted around them. When he was finished, he looked towards his masterpiece and sighed.

_Leave Jinyoung Alone._

Around the desks each child had a look of horror on his or her face except for Jinyoung, who smirked wickedly with his arms crossed in satisfaction.

From that day on none of the kids ever picked on Jinyoung again, and rumors circulated the playground that he had somehow befriended a ghost. The kids were only half right.

Jaebum was bending the laws of nature, rightfully looked down upon by the Powers That Be, but he didn’t care. Jaebum had grown to care for the boy deeply, like Jinyoung was the little brother he never had, and the reaper couldn’t bare to see anything bad happen to him. They were connected now by a fate and a promise, and Jaebum couldn’t imagine it any other way.

There are times Jaebum’s found himself slacking in his reaper duties, narrowly missing the passings of a few of his souls because he’s been busy with Jinyoung. He knows he has to do better, and he promises to focus more and manage his time well.

Jinyoung asks him to come to his seventh birthday party one day, and it’s not like Jaebum can refuse. He can’t tell ahead of time how many souls he has to deliver in a day or when, so he pinky promises he’ll make it, hoping he’ll get the chance. Only, when the twenty second of September arrives, Jaebum’s booked to the brink for the better half of the day.

He’s slacked off in the past for sure, but he’s never been this bad. His head is foggy, mind running through gift ideas for Jinyoung and trying to find something quick, so much so that he nearly forgets the countdown timer ticking off in his mind. He realizes it nearly at the thirty second mark and rushes the find the man who is about to pass of liver failure.

Jaebum gets there at the man’s last breath thankfully, but not without a sharp sensation digging into his chest knowing he almost failed. He doesn’t want to know what would have happened to him if he did.

He’s late to Jinyoung’s birthday party just by an hour, and by that time all his foster brothers and school friends are passing out presents while they wait for the cake. Jaebum stands at the back corner clutching the present he got the boy behind his back in surprise.

They’ve all figured out by now that Jinyoung’s got an “imaginary friend” that he’s waiting for, so when Jinyoung catches sight of him and waves happily with a bite of chocolate cake smearing his mouth, no one bats an eye.

“Look Mrs. Kim, Jaebummie hyung is here!”

Everyone turns to the general direction Jinyoung points, and even though they can’t see him, Jaebum still feels a hot flush creep up the back of his neck from the awkward attention.

Mrs. Kim waves to him nervously. “Hello, Jaebum-ssi.”

Feeling like it’s be rude if he didn’t, Jaebum sighs and waves back to her like it’s a normal thing. Luckily no one presses his existence any further, so he takes pride in standing in the back to watch as his little bundle of joy has fun with his family and friends.

The child has molded into his new family better than Jaebum could have ever hoped for, and maybe somewhere off it heaven, Park Wooyoung and his wife are looking down at their son with pride in their eyes.

Jaebum finds himself wandering back to the small kitchen of their home, glancing at all the images held to the white fridge by magnets. There’s a couple a baby pictures, one of Youngjae and Yugyeom by the looks of it. Some of the boy’s grade reports from school hang proudly at the top, and at the bottom of the door lays a messy drawing in crayons of two people floating in the sky and one smaller person directly below it.

“I drew that in art class.” Jinyoung says, catching Jaebum off guard. He’s brandished a cone hat as the birthday boy and points to the paper, trying to make out the mess of his scribbles. “We were supposed to draw our family. That’s my eomma and appa in heaven.” His pudgy finger glides to the bottom of the page to land on the smaller person. “And they’re watching over me.”

Jaebum sighs, admiring the yellow triangles for bodies and green circles for heads. “It’s a beautiful picture, Youngie. I’m sure your parents would have loved it.”

“I wanted to add in you too!” Jinyoung explains then, turning to Jaebum’s side. “But we were all out of black colors.”

The words punch a laugh out of the back of Jaebum’s throat, very aware of what that means for him. It means Jinyoung considers him a part of his family, whether it’s like a brother or a guardian. And also that he maybe wears too much black.

“Hyungie,” Jinyoung says, voice dropping out of the giddy tone it held previous. His eyes are cast down, and he looks utterly smaller than he had before. “Do you think you can give my eomma and appa this picture the next time you see them in heaven?”

The request has Jaebum’s breath stuttering. From the serious pink of the boy’s cheeks to the way he wrings his hands together nervously, Jaebum knows he he can’t refuse. He’s dug his hole deep and can’t tell Jinyoung that it’s unlikely that will ever happen. He’s not even allowed into heaven yet, but maybe if he ever bumps into one of the angels he could pass it along.

“Of course I can.” The lie tastes bitter, but he’d rather live with the guilt than watch Jinyoung be disappointed. And if Jinyoung looks pleased with his reply, then there’s really no harm done.

Slipping the picture from the fridge Jaebum folds it delicately and places it into the pocket of his coat and switches it for the original thing he arrived with. Jinyoung’s face lights up brighter than before as Jaebum presents a thin, palm-sized box to him topped with a black bow.

Excitedly, Jinyoung rips the top off and doesn’t bother to save the bow, tossing it to the side. Jaebum shouldn’t be, but he’s nervous to see Jinyoung’s reaction to the gift. It’s simple, but it cost him an arm and leg to get considering he's not technically alive anymore and nearly caused him to miss the passing of a soul.

Jinyoung gasps when he takes a peek inside, body bouncing up and down when he reveals a perfectly counted set of marbles rolling around. They’re nicer than the ones he originally had, lime green in honor of his favorite color. A single marble, the one that’s nestled in the center, is larger than the rest, and more specially made.

“Wow!” He exclaims as he holds the larger one up to the light. “It has a ‘J’ in it! ‘J’ for Jinyoung!”

Satisfied, Jinyoung climbs into Jaebum’s arms with a “Thanks, Hyungie. I love you.”

Fighting back the urge to cry, Jaebum holds him tighter than he ever has before. He doesn’t know if as a reaper he has the capabilities to love like he once did as a human, but holding his favorite person in the world between his arms, Jaebum thinks he might not have lost it.

“I love you too Jinyoung-ah. Happy Birthday.”

When it comes time for the party to be over and the kids have all passed out from their sugar crash, Jaebum exits through the backyard with Jinyoung’s drawing nestled in his pocket. He stops short near the sandbox however, when a familiar face stares back at him silently.

“Mark. What are you doing here?

“I should be asking you the same thing.”

Jaebum gulps, registering Mark’s stern posture and the way his jaw clenches ever so slightly. He was in trouble. “I’m here to deliver a soul,” he lies.

“You’re a terrible liar.” Mark’s eyebrows raise as he crosses his arms. The harsh stare of his eyes keeps Jaebum rooted to the spot. “You’re here for the boy.”

“So what?” Jaebum spits defensively. He wasn’t doing anything wrong. “Where does it say in the handbook I can’t visit a friend?”

“A friend is one thing, Jaebum-ah. It’s another to go around parading as a child’s guardian angel.”

So Mark knows. He must have just found out recently, if his appearance at this moment is anything to go by. It renders Jaebum mute, shoulders sagging. There’s nothing for him to deny, but he somewhat feels like a child caught stealing candy from a candy jar.

“It’s not what it seems,” he tries to explain. “I promised to protect him. It’s not cutting into my duties and-”

“Not cutting into your duties?” Mark asks flabbergasted, silencing Jaebum with the spite dripping from his tongue. “You’ve been neglecting your duties for months. You almost lost a soul today, Jaebum. The Powers That Be don’t take to kindly to that.”

As the brazzen words tumble from Mark’s lips, they sound like treason. For that, Jaebum feels ashamed. He knows he’s been slacking, and today proved just how much. He couldn’t bare to think of what would have happened to the poor soul if they hadn’t found their way to heaven, what would have been his own fault for being selfish. He can’t even explain himself here, he knows what he’s doing is wrong.

Jinyoung means too much to him, and it’s becoming an issue.

“The powers… Do they know? What are they going to do to me?”

Sighing, Mark drops his arms to match the understanding that overtakes the lines of his face. “They know everything, Jaebum. So I’m here to warn you about what you’re doing. I know you care for the boy but you have to give up this charade.”

The words spoken out loud physically pain him. Give up Jinyoung, the little boy that’s turned his life upside down in a matter of months? The one person who’s made him feel like he’s alive again, living and breathing for the next moment?

“What happens if I don’t?” He dares.

Mark’s dejected eyes find his. He sighs. “The Powers That Be will do whatever it takes to remove the distraction.”

The air punches out of Jaebum’s lungs. “They can’t do that! He’s an innocent child in all of this, they can’t kill him!”

“They can, and they will,” Mark informs solemnly. “They’ve done it before and they’ll do it again. We can’t stop these things once they’ve made their mind up, so if you value Jinyoung’s life you will stop seeing him.”

White hot tears prickle at the corner of his eyes, but Jaebum does his best not to act out in frustration. He blinks back the wetness and turns from Mark, knees buckling with the weight of everything. He doesn’t want it to end this way. He cares for Jinyoung more than one ought to be allowed; he knows how devastated the child will be when their end has finally come - it’s already devastating enough for Jaebum as it is.

He wished to be there as Jinyoung grew up, to bask in his accomplishments and watch as he evolved into his own person, but it was naive of Jaebum to think that Jinyoung could actually hold a place in his life. They could never be family.

A beat passes, and Jaebum doesn’t turn back around. Nothing else is shared between the pair, only the crunch of grass beneath Mark’s shoes as he turns the corner and disappears.

“I’m truly sorry it has to be this way.”

The reaper that once delivered him is gone before Jaebum can formulate a response, leaving Jaebum to wallow in degrading self-pity in the small of the Kim’s backyard. When his body can’t take it anymore he falls to his knees and weeps.

***

That night, after all have gone to bed, Jaebum appears mutely in the corner of Jinyoung’s room casted in the shadows he’s come to call home. Before him lays the child he’s come to adore so, covered in a soft glow from the pale moonlight. He’s breathtaking; Jaebum will truly miss him.

Not wanting to have to deal with the heartbreak of goodbyes Jaebum decides to visit Jinyoung one last time, nice and quick to make the eventual wound heal faster. Like ripping off a bandaid, he gently strokes a few strands of hair out of the boy’s eyes and presses a light kiss to his temple. Since it’s the last time he’ll ever be able to touch another being again he lingers in sorrow briefly before retracting himself and vanishing once more.

The music fades.

This is the last time Jaebum believes he’ll see Park Jinyoung.


	2. II

_17 Years Later_

 

Jaebum doesn’t know how time works most days. It’s a construct, he knows, determined by intellectuals thousands if not millions of years ago. He’d learned it in school shortly before he died. How and why they decided on fifty two weeks to make a year, seven days to make a week, twenty four hours to make a day, or sixty minutes to make an hour is beyond his level of comprehension. He wasn’t one for theories, string theory or anything crafted by Einstein that gave a theoretical glimpse into how time works.

No one knows how how time works, it just does. Seconds tick on and on and on wordlessly with no end in sight.

Time works differently for those in different planes of reality. For those wrapped in the living plane, otherwise dubbed the plane of existence, time crawls on at a normal pace based on predetermined ideas of what time truly is. For those existing outside of the living plane however, time doesn’t exist.

It does exist, in all truth. But there’s no measurement to go off of except the ones humans came up with long ago. In the plane of the others not living, there’s no night or day to signal the passing of time. Minutes are non existent unless you’re a reaper on a mission, and even then what you experience in your plane will not remain so in the plane of existence.

Though the concept of time is skewed for those that do not truly exist, time seems to fly by at a quicker pace than in would in the living plane. A minute in the plane of the dead could mean an hour in the plane of existence, and vice versa. It all depended on the intent of that moment.

In the nearly two decades since Jaebum’s become a reaper, he’s learned two things. One: it’s extremely difficult to keep up with the world now that he’s no longer physically in it. And two: The Powers That Be don’t care. He supposes they don’t have to; they already have entire universes to bend to their will.

Still, time slips by like its own destiny has been predetermined by the powers. For all Jaebum knows, it probably has.

In the years since his death he’s lost track of time completely, numb to the process of escorting souls to wherever they tell him to go. He’s spent years, day in and day out, delivering the dead to their destinations because it’s all he can do until his sentence is up. He’s grown used to it by now - the dead, the grieving, the denial and betrayal - from everyone all over the globe. He’s delivered the elderly more times than the rest, but younger women and men will continue to die as long as time allows. By now he’s witnessed thousands of children being torn away from their bodies and escorted every single one, and even though it’s still the hardest thing to see, he doesn’t fret over it any longer.

It’s the circle of life, handed to Jaebum over and over again.

He was bound to lose track of time eventually with the job he has calling on him every other second, not finding it in himself to discover what it is any time he’s on the clock. It would be so easy to just look around for a calendar, but he simply doesn’t care.

Once while waiting for a man to pass who just happened to work at a newspaper counter, Jaebum snuck a glance at the day’s paper headline without meaning to. _Chinese Man Struck Gold in Hawaii_ it read, _March 3rd, 2018._

It was already 2018, meaning Jaebum had died almost exactly eighteen years ago.

That specific moment in time at the newspaper counter hadn’t been that long ago, so Jaebum believes it’s safe to say they’re still in the early months of the new year.

He’s hit with a sudden vision as he’s mindlessly sitting on a bench at the park watching squirrels chase each other animatedly, a middle aged figure in a coffee shop in Seoul fading into view. He’s got about thirty minutes before what should be an easy robbery goes wrong and ends with a bullet piercing his heart. The pain on his face alone is enough to get Jaebum queasy, but he’s delivered enough gunshot victims by now to be used to the feeling.

Out of all the deaths he’s seen, he can confidently say that gunshots and bomb blasts are by far the most torturous ways to go.

There’s no time to dwell on it so he packs himself up and scowers the whole of Seoul to determine which coffee shop it will be. It only takes him a few minutes to find the right one, _Seoul Cup,_ nestled in a little corner downtown. It’s rustic and needs a few paint touch ups around the edges, but it’s comforting and homey and seems to be doing okay. But now that its senior manager is about to be killed by a wild gunman, there’s no telling what will happen to the business.

Jaebum catches sight of his soul immediately, standing in the corner in a nicer button-up uniform than the hourly workers, watching over them to make sure they’re doing their jobs correctly. He doesn’t have a significant other or any kids to leave behind, but he does have a mother and a sister that will miss him terribly.

Before him the quiet hum of a soft lullaby dances through the air, it's eerily familiar rhythm catching Jaebum off guard. He figures it must be coming from the shop’s speaker system, and elects to ignore it. It’s certainly pleasing to his ears, but he can’t shake the feeling he’s heard it somewhere before.

It’s about five minutes or so until the showdown begins, Jaebum noting the influx of customers lounging in the inside. No one else will be hurt besides the manger, yet Jaebum still feels protective of each and every life in the shop. He walks up to the counter so he can get a better view of the entire store once shit hits the fan, knowing there’s not been a single person to see him since…

Well, there was no time to think about him.

Jaebum clears his mind of fleeting thoughts and gazes over the chalkboard drink menu hung from the ceiling before him. When Jaebum was growing up, there was only one option: _coffee._ Nowadays these kids have too much nonsense to choose from - from cappa-whatevers to caramel mochalattas. It was so much and too expensive, Jaebum couldn’t imagine what his budget as a college student would look like now.

His mind is far off examining the menu that he doesn’t catch the movement before him until a soft voice is calling out.

“Hello sir, what can I get for you?”

At first, Jaebum doesn’t think anything of it. He knows the calling is not for him, but he can’t help but feel a prickly sensation bloom on the back of his neck. He looks down anyway despite the knowledge that it’s not him being referred to, if only to catch the person that the sweet voice belongs to.

When his eyes land on the stranger - a boy, maybe Jaebum’s own age when he died, mixing another customer’s drink - a gasp rings low in his chest as the man seemed to stare right at him.

 _Impossible,_ Jaebum thinks, catching the particularly handsome man’s eyes. The music gets louder.

No, he was definitely imagining things. There’s been plenty of moments when he’s thought humans could actually see him, but they all ended up being tricks of the light or Jaebum’s imagination running wild.

Still, it all seems too real, and Jaebum can’t shake the feeling that the barista is expecting an answer from him. He glances over his shoulder to double check that there’s positively someone else there waiting to make an order, confusion overtaking him when he discovers an empty space and no body. He turns back with a finger pointed at his chest.

The handsome barista faces him incredulously, closing the lid to the drink in his hands. “Yes, you.”

Jaebum blanks, frozen to the spot as the man calls out the drink order for pickup. His mouth parts to respond, but like he’s just lost his voice no words will come out. So this is real, even if he has trouble fully believing it.

“You can see me?”

“Of course I can see you.” The man says incredulously, like Jaebum’s taken a sip of the crazy juice. “Why wouldn’t I?”

Because it’s not possible. Because only one living person was able to see Jaebum, and he was long gone. There was no fathomable way anyone else could see him too unless they were-

Jaebum drops his gaze down to the man’s black apron and finds his little rectangular name tag nestled at the top. Across it, in finely engraved letters, reads a name he hasn’t dared speak in a long, long time. The lullaby is deafening.

_Jinyoung._

Holding back a gasp Jaebum forces himself to do a double take to reassure himself this is real and he hasn’t entered some distorted reality by The Powers That Be. He hasn’t by the looks of it, failing to blink away the name every time he tries.

In morbid shock Jaebum searches the man’s face once more just to be sure and is met with the same similar air of stupor, finding the breathing boy’s eyes blown wide and his mouth parting slightly. Then comes the undeniable moment when something else in his eyes flicker, like he finally registers what’s standing before him.

Then the man who ordered the drink Jinyoung’s currently holding appears from the side and walks right through Jaebum to get to the counter. The reaper barely feels it of course, leaving a shiver that travels down his spine; people accidentally walk through him all the time so it’s no big deal.

However Jinyoung is in full view of the motion and gasps as he jumps back in horror. The cup falls from his hands numbly and collides with the floor in an ungodly mess of piping hot coffee, the brown liquid spilling everywhere from the counter to the customer’s old loafers.

Jinyoung isn’t paying attention to the commotion he’s caused or the customer screaming at him, terrified eyes burning holes into Jaebum’s own.

“It’s you.” The shake in his voice matches the trembling of his hands

Ignoring the rest of the shop looking at the scene in wonder Jaebum can’t even find the right words to speak, the familiarity of the young man washing over him like a child bathed in light. This was really him, Park Jinyoung, the child he would have done anything for. The promise he couldn’t keep.

“You’re not real,” he whispers loud enough that Jaebum can feel the pain in his voice.

“Park Jinyoung!” The older manager yells as he approaches the two, face burning red. “Don’t just stand there, clean the mess up while I get the nice customer a new drink!” He faces the customer and like a flip is switched, he’s smiling to the distraught man with the cheeriest voice he can muster. “I’m so sorry about that, sir. We’ll get you cleaned up and have a new drink ready for you on the house.”

Jaebum has no choice but to stand back and watch as the scene plays out in front of him, stuck on the thought of ‘ _what do I do?’_ while Jinyoung slowly retrieves a roll of paper towels from the side. His moves are slow and careful as he wads the paper up less than perfectly and steps out from behind the counter.

“I’m s-sorry,” Jinyoung stutters to the customer who merely brushes him aside like he’s not worthy of an apology. Faced with defeat Jinyoung crouches to his knees to soak up most of the mess, hard stare fixated on Jaebum’s black boots as if watching them long enough could will them away. “Please tell me you see him,” he pleads to his manager as he stands with the sopping wet paper towels in hand.

The manager hands the freshly brewed coffee off to the troubled customer and looks to where Jinyoung is gesturing, cocking his head in confusion. “See who?”

“The man in the black coat!”

“Woah woah, Jinyoung calm down,” the manager says comfortingly with a hand pressed to Jinyoung’s side. “There’s no man in a black coat here. Are you feeling okay?”

“Then you’re not real!” Jinyoung shouts at Jaebum, bringing forth even more attention to himself than he had before the coffee incident. Now he just looked crazy, with wild eyes and labored breathing. “You can’t be real.”

Jaebum feels utterly gutted that he has to be privy to this, betrayal and remorse seeping into his bones as he watches Jinyoung crumble around him. There’s no telling what Jinyoung’s thought of him over the last seventeen years, so this chance meeting will have a lasting impression that Jaebum regrets immediately.

The executive manager now looks worried as he glances around at the spectacle Jinyoung’s made. “Hey kid, why don’t you just go in the back and take a breather, okay?” He reassures and removes the towels from Jinyoung’s hands guiding him back behind the counter. “Everything’s fine folks! Everybody gets a free biscotti on me!”

There’s an innate desire there, buried deep within Jaebum’s soul that is telling him to lend Jinyoung a hand of comfort. The affection he once held for the child is still there it seems, bubbling under the surface despite Jinyoung being a grown man now. He hates what he’s done, leaving Jinyoung to believe he wasn’t real in the first place, causing him to fall into this state of shock. He wants so desperately to pull Jinyoung into his arms like he would when he was six years old and kiss his forehead when his parents couldn’t.

But the timer ticking in his mind stops suddenly, and there’s a hooded man at the front counter he didn’t even hear slip in.

“Give me all your fucking money!” The man screams out loud, brandishing a small revolver from the pocket of his hoodie. He points it to where the manager is predictably standing behind the register, earning a round of terrified gasps and sobs from around the shop. “If anybody moves or makes a sound, I’ll shoot you!

The manager does his best to calm the theft, peaking slowly to him as he fulfills his commands. The register slides open and he begins ripping out all the dollars bills and shoving it into the man's sack.

Even though Jaebum knows this man will be the only one that will perish in the altercation, there’s still a need inside to protect Jinyoung with every fiber of his being. Even more terrified now than he was before and on the brink of tears, Jinyoung stares open mouthed at the scene, not daring to move a muscle.

Jaebum steps closer to him cautiously in hopes that Jinyoung won’t do anything sudden, putting himself between Jinyoung and the gunman. Now all that’s left to do is wait for the inevitable.

“Please, do something,” Jinyoung’s voice trembles in a whisper behind Jaebum, loud enough for the gunman to hear.

His eyes are blazing as he turns to Jinyoung with the gun aimed straight for his head. Jaebum tangles his fingers in Jinyoung’s work shirt and pulls him down behind the counter with a jolt just as the first shot rings out. The bullet pierces through Jaebum’s ghostly form but doesn’t hit him, colliding with the espresso machine opposite of him.

“Wait, stop!” The manager yells, but he’s too late.

The thief swings the gun around and lets out two more shots that hit the manager directly in the chest, one below his pectoral muscle and the second, the killing blow, slicing its way through his heart.

The gunman darts from the shop with his money before any more civilians are hurt, their frantic voices bouncing off the walls as they pull out their phones to call emergency services. Jinyoung quickly regains clarity from being shot at to crawl across the floor to where his manager lies deathly still in a pool of his own blood. His shirt is stained with the blood from the bullets and his eyes barely remain open from the pain.

Jinyoung’s actions become more his own when he rips his apron from his body and presses it to the wounds and yells out for someone to get help. His actions are pointless, but Jaebum lets him have this moment of hope.

“Please,” Jinyoung calls back, finally having come to terms with Jaebum’s presence. “You have to help him. He’s a good man, he doesn’t deserve to die.”

If only Jinyoung knew how true that statement could be. Jaebum shakes his head with an apology on the tip of his tongue. “I’m sorry, but there’s nothing I can do. It’s his time.”

Horror flashes over Jinyoung’s face as he turns back to his boss, not ready yet to give up. Only the man’s face has drained of its bright color, his eyes have glossed over, and when Jinyoung checks his neck for a pulse, he comes up empty. His manager is gone.

Sitting back brokenly, Jinyoung wipes his blood stained hands on his shirt and lets the swell of tears building in his eye ducts fall like the rain.

The soul of the manager appears before Jaebum then, having already accepted his death in the moments before his quick passing. He nods at Jaebum as the reaper beckons him to follow. The two exit the shop so Jaebum can escort him to where the rest of his family are waiting in heaven.

In his fit, Jinyoung forgets about Jaebum and misses the footsteps trailing out of the shop until it’s too late.

“Jaebum hyung?” He stands, calmer in his actions as he traces the shop for any sign of his old friend.

Nothing.

Jinyoung collapses and waits for the paramedics to arrive.

***

Leaving Jinyoung had never gotten better.

Once Jaebum had parted ways with the child that fateful day, his seventh birthday no less, there had been no more contact and zero communication on his end. Jaebum was forced to give up the boy he cared for so, partly because he feared the consequences that would face him if he ever fucked up again, but mostly because of what would happen to Jinyoung if he did. The Powers were ruthless, and Jaebum was in no position to go against them.

Leaving Jinyoung was both the best and worst possible thing for the child. There were moments Jinyoung would crouch at the foot of his bed and pray, pray with such a sincerity for his favorite hyungie to return that it drove Jaebum ballistic. Because he was so intune with the child he heard the whispers of his prayers every night for years, and the torture that came with hearing Jinyoung’s hurt never got any easier. He begged and pleaded with Jaebum to return, always wondering if it was something he’d done wrong. Jaebum could never reassure him that it wasn’t, for fear that something dark would happen if he did. 

So Jaebum put everything he had into his work and locked away all memories of little Park Jinyoung in a chest and threw away the key for good.

At such a young age, it was normal for boys like Jinyoung to develop their own imaginary friends. It would have been weird if he didn’t. But as the years passed on Jinyoung grew restless in his “imaginations” as his friends and family called it, drawing picture after picture of a man in black always standing five feet behind him.

His teachers thought this friend was cause for concern, so they suggested his foster parents take him to see a child development counselor to make sure nothing irregular was going on in his life. The counselors and his foster family were surprised to discover nothing out of the ordinary in Jinyoung’s psychological study, finding the only “problem” with him was that he couldn’t seem to let go of this imaginary friend he insisted was real.

Jinyoung was told to grow up and get over this phase; he had real friends at school and at home, becoming best friends with his same age brother Jackson and forming strong bonds with his other three foster brothers. While Jinyoung held back and insisted they were wrong, time grew on, and Jaebum never returned.

As Jinyoung grew into his self as a teenager and eventually a young adult, he gave up his delusions that he had a guardian angel looking over him. Even though there were few things he couldn’t understand, he chalked it up to his wild imagination as a child and ignored all memories relating to the tall man in the black coat.

He didn’t forget though. He could never forget.

So after the brutally jarring events of the night are over and Jinyoung’s rid himself of the fine layer of his dead manager’s blood, he climbs into his pajamas and drops to his knees at the foot of his bed. He feels foolish, clasping his hands together as he bows his head like he would when he was only a child, but he needs to know the truth. He has to make sure this is real.

He prays to Jaebum like he’s six years old and looking for a friend.

Of course, Jaebum hears his plea. He always has.

And when Jaebum appears in the darkness of Jinyoung’s room, it’s not because he wants to. What he wanted was for this night to never have happened, for Jinyoung not to have been thrown back into his life. Jaebum fears that now, even with the tiny moment they had together in the shop, he’ll desire to stick around for good. That wouldn’t end well for either of them.

No, Jaebum comes because he has to, because he needs to tell Jinyoung the truth; he owes him at least that.

Like a flash when he enters, Jaebum’s signature black coat flutters with the wind, and Jinyoung registers the sound of it immediately. He stands from his bed with nervous hands, a deep sigh releasing from his chest when he finds Jaebum standing in the corner exactly how he used to. Only now, Jinyoung lives alone in a petite one bedroom apartment in downtown Seoul, and he’s no longer a kid.

“You’re here,” the human breathes, taking in Jaebum’s familiar appearance once more to make sure it’s still real. “I can’t believe you came. I mean, I hoped you would.”

Jaebum hesitates by the window on the opposite side of the room. “It’s been a long time, Jinyoungie.”

Seventeen years, a long time indeed. But somehow now that they’re together again, it’s like time hadn’t passed, like Jaebum never left. Jinyoung has grown up, that’s true, but he looks the same as he did when he was a child. The same mop of black hair covers his head, though now it’s slightly wavy as it reaches his eyes. He’s grown into his ears but they’re still his most prominent feature, and he’s tall - almost as tall as Jaebum. Not to mention he’s developed handsomely into his facial features - his sturdy chin, dashing cheekbones, and the ghost of a five o’clock shadow above his lip. No longer was he an innocent boy, but a man with a confident air to him.

It will take some time to get used to.

“They thought I made you up,” Jinyoung takes a cautious step forward, pressing their boundaries. “They told me you didn’t exist, and even though I grew up I never stopped believing you were real.” Snapping to the dresser in front of his bed, Jinyoung digs deep into one of the drawers and shuffles out a stack of papers. “I drew these, see?”

Jinyoung brandishes the stack before Jaebum who silently takes it and looks through them one by one. Jinyoung was quite the Picasso when he was younger, but there was no denying the black figure he drew in the distance of everything else was him. Jaebum could see why it would be cause for alarm by adults.

He’s suddenly reminded of a different drawing, the very same one Jinyoung had drawn years ago and given to Jaebum on his birthday. He was supposed to deliver it to Jinyoung’s parents, but that never came to pass. Now it aches in his pocket, stuck like glue to him for the better part of seventeen years. He doesn’t mention it.

As Jaebum skims through the images ranging from when Jinyoung was seven to twelve, he feels the intensity of Jinyoung’s stare and glances up to find the younger’s eyes taking in every inch of his face.

“You look the same.” He states in awe, a hand unconsciously reaching out before he realizes and corrects himself. “You’re just as beautiful as I remember.”

The sincerity in Jinyoung’s tired eyes and the proximity of their bodies to each other has Jaebum in a slight panic, dropping the pictures back in Jinyoung’s hands before he can say anything else. “I don’t age,” he explains, avoiding Jinyoung’s last admission. “Not like you. You’re how old now?”

“Twenty four.”

The same age Jaebum was when he died. “That’s a good age.”

Jinyoung nods with a small smile as he shoves his artwork back into the drawer, but the insinuation goes over his head. “Is that why you decided to come back?”

“Jinyoung,” Jaebum breathes steadily, still unprepared for the conversation that will follow despite practicing it a thousand times in his head. “Maybe we should sit down first.”

“Right, of course.” Jinyoung nods, straightening the comforter on his bed - a solid black now compared to the zoo animals he had before - and gesturing for Jaebum to sit. He takes a seat by his pillows and doesn’t hesitate before diving right in. “Where did you go? Why did you leave me without even saying goodbye? I prayed to you every night did you even hear me-”

“I did,” Jaebum relents with the hurt still bruising, shutting his eyes for a moment so he can remember how to breathe. “I heard everything, and I’m so sorry, Jinyoung. No amount of sorrys can tell you how bad I felt leaving you like that.”

Jinyoung gulps, wringing his hands together. It's nice to see he still holds the same mannerisms from when he was younger.

His eyes are uneasy. “Then why did you?”

Here it comes, the part where Jaebum tells Jinyoung he’s not actually an angel sent to protect him, but a grim reaper who was actually sent by the dead father he’d escorted into the afterlife on a tainted promise to protect him as a child.

“I was advised against seeing you,” he opts out for, hating himself for being scared of admitting the truth. “The Powers wanted-”

“The Powers?” Jinyoung breaks in, shuffling closer to Jaebum on the bed. “What do you mean, the‘Powers’?”

“The Powers That Be.” Jaebum states. “The beings who control everything in the universe. They determine who lives, who dies, where they go in the afterlife, and which ones become something else entirely.”

“Is that why you didn’t help my manager, Mr. Woo? Because the Powers That Be had decided to end his life?” Jaebum nods and Jinyoung sighs in understanding. “So does that mean you were really there to... Protect me?”

“I-I..” Jaebum stammers, thoughts caught in his throat as Jinyoung scoots even closer, their thighs pressing against each other. It’s the first real contact Jaebum’s had with _anybody_ in seventeen years - minus that stunt in the coffee shop - so he closes his eyes to savor the feeling of Jinyoung’s touch.

“You saved my life.”

In the blink of an eye Jinyoung’s palm is traveling to the soft lines of Jaebum’s thigh, causing his eyes to snap open as the warmth from his hand slowly heats up his entire being. It’s gentle and breathtaking, but most of all it feels like home.

“You came even though these Powers wouldn’t let you?” The younger asks. “Why would they forbid my guardian angel from seeing me?”

There’s true concern and a touch of anger in Jinyoung’s voice, but Jaebum isn’t paying attention to that. All he can focus on is the _my guardian angel_ part, which forces himself to finally confront what he should of from the beginning. But-

No, he can’t. He can’t tell Jinyoung what he really is, it would break his heart. It would destroy the image Jinyoung had painted of Jaebum most of his life, as his protector, a pure life-saving angel that helped those in need. If he saw Jaebum for what he really was - the bringer of death - Jinyoung would be disgusted. There’d be no happy ending.

Jaebum vows to keep the information to himself, for the reasons he’s already stated but also to keep the wondrous spark in Jinyoung’s eyes when he looks at him.

“As beings that do the Higher Powers’ biddings, we have certain rules that we must follow.” Jaebum isn’t technically lying. “We have responsibilities to both the living and the dead, and we have no room for error.”

“So I was a distraction for you?” Jinyoung questions sadly, head cast down.

“Hey,” Jaebum starts, placing his hand on top of Jinyoung’s in comfort. With his other hand Jaebum finds the other man’s chin and lifts it so they’re looking into each other’s eyes. “You did nothing wrong, I was just starting out back then. I was very naive and didn’t know how to balance my duties well. You were a wonderful part of that time and I fucked it all up.”

Jinyoung’s breath hitches and in the opposite effect his eyes become glossy with tears. “You didn’t even say goodbye.”

“Because I didn’t want to see this look on your face.” With the back of his sleeve, Jaebum wipes the single stray tear that rolls down Jinyoung’s cheek. “I thought it would be easier if I left you to forget.”

Taking a shaky breath in, Jinyoung finishes clearing his face of any loose tears. “Well it didn’t work. I could never forget you, Jaebum hyung. You were my best friend.”

To emphasize his words Jinyoung holds up his other wrist, adorned with a simple green bracelet made out of spherical beads. Upon looking closer Jaebum realizes it’s the marbles he’d given to Jinyoung as a seventh birthday present, the larger one with a ’J’ cursively engraved on it sitting in the middle of the other beads. Jinyoung never tried to forget him.

The intensity of the moment has Jaebum feeling even worse than he already had in ditching the child. Not only is he still lying to Jinyoung about who he really is, but now he realizes that he was wrong about leaving the way he did. He should have said goodbye - it would have hurt less than this.

Still, Jaebum breaks into a smile. “Jinyoung-ah you’ll always be that little boy who needed me to bandage him up when he fell off the swingset.”

“That was so long ago.” The memories get Jinyoung to laugh, flushing pink. “I’m not a little kid anymore.”

No, he wasn’t. He was so much more than that - a grown man -and he didn’t need Jaebum around anymore to baby him.

By now Jinyoung has stopped crying, gazing at Jaebum like he’s the one who hung the moon. Jaebum feels quite the opposite, but he’ll pretend as long as he can just to see Jinyoung remaining happy in this moment.

There’s an image that flashes through Jaebum’s mind suddenly, a small girl in the back of a moving truck. She only has an hour left, which means soon Jaebum will have to come up with an excuse to leave.

“I have to go soon.”

Beside him, Jinyoung’s smile drops and his body stiffens. “Will you come back?” He asks in fear. “Or are you leaving for good?”

At the edge of the bed, Jaebum takes a moment to think. His palms are sweaty as he imagines this being the last time he’ll ever see Jinyoung again. He could do it, if he absolutely had to. But being in Jinyoung’s mere presence alone is like coming home after a long day - it always has been. Feeling his touch again after so long without the privilege makes Jaebum feel alive for the first time in forever. He wants to come back.

But the Powers are watching. Who knows what they’ll think, or even what they’ll do. They control everything, and whatever happens happens for a reason.

So couldn’t that also mean…?

If the Powers That Be controlled everything and didn’t want him around Jinyoung, they surely would have sent another reaper on the assignment today. They wouldn’t have had to cross paths, and Jaebum wouldn’t be here now. But what if they did it on purpose, to thrust Jinyoung back into his life like they’d never been separated in the first place?

Maybe they were giving Jaebum a chance to start over, to do things right this time. The first time Jaebum was young and naive - he almost let a few souls get lost because he devoted so much time and energy to Jinyoung. But now he’s a seasoned veteran with hope, so perhaps they were giving him this opportunity to test his abilities.

He’s learned in his time spent away from Jinyoung; he knows he won’t fail.

“I’ll return,” Jaebum informs and is met with a growing smile on Jinyoung’s face. “I promise, I’m not leaving you again.”

Squeezing Jaebum’s hand reassuringly, Jinyoung takes a moment before he speaks. “Will you stay until I’ve fallen asleep?”

Reminded of the request from when he was a child, Jaebum grins and happily obliges. He’s got enough time, and if Jinyoung is the same, he’ll be asleep within minutes.

As Jinyoung folds down the covers and slips underneath, Jaebum awkwardly sits at the foot of the bed for a second and wonders what he should do. Back then he would merely watch Jinyoung sleep and occasionally send him words of comfort when he was getting too restless. Now that Jinyoung is older, he’s unsure of what boundaries exist.

The sole light in the room is burned out as Jinyoung turns the knob of his lamp and sends them into darkness. Closing his eyes as he gets comfortable, it only take a few minutes for Jinyoung’s breathing to even out.

Jaebum doesn’t know what comes over him in that moment, maybe it’s the way Jinyoung sleeps peacefully like the lullaby that still sings around him, but he moves down the bed so he’s closer to the other man, and blindly reaches out. Jinyoung’s hair isn’t as soft as it was when he was younger, but his black ends still fall between Jaebum’s fingers all the same.

He gets so lost in the feeling he doesn’t notice Jinyoung’s eyes on him until the edge of the blanket is being lifted up and he’s scooting over to allow Jaebum to crawl in. Maybe because Jaebum is just overwhelmed or because he’s really drawn to Jinyoung, Jaebum removes his coat and toes his shoes off before sliding in.

He’s met with Jinyoung’s lively warmth again, sighing with content as he situates himself on his back and Jinyoung dares to get closer. He looks unsure when he seeks out Jaebum’s body, but the reaper nods to signal it’s okay, and lets Jinyoung curl around his side. With Jinyoung’s head on his chest and his arm across Jaebum’s torso, Jaebum feels at ease, like a piece missing has finally been put back in place.

“Did Mr. Woo get into heaven?” Jinyoung asks softly.

Jaebum stares at the top of his head; he’d almost forgotten about the horrors of the night. “He did.”

“Do you think I’ll get into heaven?”

Grinning down, Jaebum cards his fingers through Jinyoung’s hair intricately. “I have no doubt in my mind.”

Jaebum feels it where Jinyoung smiles against his shirt. “What about you?”

He hopes Jinyoung can’t hear the sadness in his voice.

“I hope so.”

***

The next day as promised, Jaebum comes around when he knows Jinyoung will be home. It means something to both of them that Jaebum’s decided to give this guardian task another go, and even more so that Jinyoung has forgiven him for running off the first time around.

“You really came back,” Jinyoung says, like their reunion had all been a dream.

A promise was a promise, and Jaebum was determined to make things right this time. There wasn’t much in the world Jinyoung needed protecting from any longer, and Jaebum struggled to find a place where he fit in. However, he’d lost seventeen years with Jinyoung, unable to witness his development from boy to teen to the beautiful and put together man he was now, and Jaebum was not going to miss anymore.

He sticks to being Jinyoung’s guardian first off until they can reach a level of comfortability with each other that they can consider each other friends. Jaebum still watches over Jinyoung and guides him in the right direction when he needs it, and their first few moments spent together after their reunion are full of questions of curiosity and wonder, the pair desperate to know of what the other had been up to for the last almost two decades.

“I’ve just been watching over people. You know, guiding them,” Jaebum informs, which is technically the truth. “The years have gone by so fast, I barely remember one day from the next.”

“The life of an angel sounds hectic.” Jinyoung muses, hands between his legs. He doesn’t notice the twitch in Jaebum’s eye. “My life probably seems boring in comparison. I grew up, went through puberty, started dating, graduated school, moved to Seoul, started working part time at the coffee shop while I look for acting jobs.”

For some odd reason, the mention of Jinyoung and _dating_ puts a sour taste in Jaebum’s mouth, as if anybody could be good enough for _his_ Jinyoung. He resolves to ignore it. “I don’t know,” he says. “It seems mundane to you, but I’d do almost anything to be in your place.”

“Is being an angel really that bad?”

“It’s not...” Jaebum sighs. “It’s not bad. I have a place in this universe and it’s important. I just didn’t have a choice.”

Stiffening, Jinyoung eyes him with uncertainty. “What do you mean, you didn’t have a choice?”

“We aren’t just born into the world as angels or demons. We were living once too. When we passed the Powers That Be chose us to fulfill duties as angels, gatekeepers, and reapers. We get to go to heaven when our job is complete.”

“When is your job complete?”

Jaebum hates the answer. “When the Powers declare it so.”

Disgusted, Jinyoung scoffs and looks away in thought. “That seems more like a jail sentence,” he observes, looking back at Jaebum with an apology he doesn’t need to give swirling in his brown eyes. “I didn’t know.”

Across the bed, Jaebum slips his hand over Jinyoung’s and squeezes reassuringly. “It’s okay. Sometimes, there are people that make the whole thing worth it.”

Jinyoung's shoulders sag in contentment, a light pink flush painting the planes of his cheekbones. Jaebum finds he quite likes the sight, becoming breathless when Jinyoung smiles bashfully and squeezes back.

It becomes normal for Jaebum to appear when Jinyoung is done with his long days at work or when he’s stuck at home alone with nothing better to do. As they continue to catch up he learns that Jinyoung nearly graduated at the top of his class in high school no thanks to AP Biology, was elected class president two years in a row, and starred in multiple school productions.

He’s been in Seoul for three years now, contracting himself out to various acting companies while he maintains his day job at the coffee shop. He performs in front of a small audience every Thursday night with the acting club he’s joined, the group working through various skits and musical performances that he makes Jaebum promise he’ll come out and see one night.

Jaebum has also learned the state of his foster family and how they’ve spread out all over the country. Yugyeom stayed home in Jinhae and teaches dance classes part time, Jinyoung claiming the kid’s the best dancer since Michael Jackson. BamBam has since moved to Thailand to find his birth family but visits often and updates them on his adventures, and Youngjae studies music theory at Yonsei University.

Jackson, the foster brother just a few months older than Jinyoung and who eventually became his best friend lives in Seoul as well, working with various producers around the globe on his rap songs. He comes around often to take Jinyoung to lunch and pitch to him song ideas, and at times if he’s lucky, he’ll convince Jinyoung to feature on one of his tracks. In conclusion they all turned out pretty well, even if Jinyoung feels like the least achieving of the bunch.

In addition to Jinyoung’s current life and interests, Jaebum learns that Jinyoung is rather lonely. He doesn’t say so himself, but he lives by himself, with no family around except Jackson. Both his parents are dead and all his friends are back home in Jinhae. He doesn’t have much, and Jaebum can feel it when Jinyoung lingers around him, stares at his profile for too long, or asks Jaebum to hold him while he falls asleep.

Of course, Jaebum doesn’t mind. He’ll do anything to keep Jinyoung safe and happy, no matter what it takes. Even if it includes secretly mapping out the planes of Jinyoung’s face as he sleeps soulfully in the night, eyes trailing down the soft skin as it glows under the moonlight. Jinyoung’s eyes seem smaller when they’re closed, and each minute he stares, Jaebum can’t wait for the moment Jinyoung will wake up and smile at him with the cute little creases folding at the corners of his eyes. He’s like a soft kitten, and even though Jaebum knows he’s not leaving anytime soon, he saves the image in his head just in case.

Sometimes when they’re alone, two friends spending downtime together on the couch catching up on a show or a movie that Jaebum had been too preoccupied to see, Jinyoung will lay his head on Jaebum’s shoulder and curl around his side. Jaebum welcomes it, and in return, curls a hand around Jinyoung’s thigh just to feel his warmth, earning a happy hum from the younger.

This time around, Jaebum can’t focus on the movie with Jinyoung’s warmth blinding him. He feels Jinyoung on every inch of his skin, and if he tries hard enough, he can feel the faint heat prickling under the surface.

Quietly, Jinyoung feels out Jaebum’s hand and laces their fingers together without looking away from the tv, leaving Jaebum to marvel at how well they seem to fit together.

Eventually Jinyoung falls asleep on his shoulder at exactly the same moment another soul comes through on Jaebum’s radar. He gently guides Jinyoung’s sleeping form onto the couch and covers him with a blanket before brushing the hair out of his eyes. Jaebum’s fingers dance down lightly until they sit at Jinyoung’s lips, the pad of his index finger lingering on the pillowyness of their pink color.

There’s a second there as he gazes at Jinyoung with adoration that Jaebum thinks he feels something building in his chest. It’s foreign but recognizable, and if he didn’t know any better, he could swear there was a _thump._

But no, it wasn’t possible, and Jaebum doesn’t feel the phantom heartbeat again. He leaves the younger with notions of the sweetest dreams, ignoring the way he feels dizzy and like he’s incomplete when Jinyoung isn’t around.

***

On a dark and dreary day clouded by thunderstorms that have swept over most of the country, Jaebum and Jinyoung rest in the comfort of Jinyoung’s candle lit room. Jinyoung’s got his head pressed to Jaebum’s chest, curling into his side with an arm thrown over his front. While rain rhythmically pelts the window as the storm passes overhead, Jaebum cards his fingers through Jinyoung’s hair as an anchor to this plane while his other hand lightly caresses the one Jinyoung’s got across his stomach.

It’s almost too intimate a touch when Jinyoung intertwines their fingers together and sighs dreamily, but Jaebum seeks the moment out further if only to indulge in the feeling of being able to hold someone in his arms again.

Tucked under his chin, Jinyoung’s hair smells like the cherry blossom shampoo he uses regularly, one of the sweetest sensations Jaebum’s come to feel. He wonders vaguely if he still has a smell, or if that too had disappeared when he died.

Jinyoung sighs again, fingers tracing Jaebum’s own on his chest. “It’s weird,” he remarks, ear pressing into Jaebum’s shirt. “You have no heartbeat. I always listen for it, but I can never find it. It’s like there’s nothing inside; you’re like the Tinman.” The vibrations of his chuckles radiate throughout Jaebum’s body. They quickly settle down. “You aren’t even breathing right now.”

“There’s certain things you don’t really need to do anymore, once you’re dead.”

Against him, Jinyoung’s breath puffs out unevenly. “I still don’t understand how you can be dead, but then be in this moment here with me.”

Seventeen years have gone by, and Jaebum hasn’t been able to find an answer to that question. Jinyoung certainly wasn’t clairvoyant or super intune with the dead, but there was something that made him special. He could see and feel Jaebum only, going above all laws of existence. Long ago, back when it first happened and Jaebum had sought the answers, only Mark had been able to offer him any kind of explanation.

 _You made a promise to his father,_ he had said. _But it doesn’t explain why you’ve become tanglable to him._ Something deep down is telling Jaebum that only the Powers would have the answers for him, but that’s a bridge he’s never had to cross.

“I’ve yet to figure that out either.”

“Jaebum hyung,” Jinyoung begins with a curious tone, watching their fingers dance together under the dim orange glow of the lamp. Underneath the curiosity, there’s a hidden nervous edge to his words. “When did you die?”

Jaebum knew the questions would come eventually - Jinyoung’s been hesitating ever so slightly when they’re together, like he’s ready to ask but backs away unsurely.

“In the year two thousand. I was twenty four.” Jaebum affirms.

“Oh.” Jinyoung must not have been expecting that, his voice shaking. Afterall, he is the same age. But he doesn’t embellish on that part, too focused on something else. “You died the same year my dad did.”

In all honesty, Jaebum had forgotten that minor detail. His hand massages Jinyoung’s scalp comfortingly as he feels the younger’s heart racing at the realization. “I passed only a few months before your dad did.”

“That time period was so confusing for me. I lost him, but at least it brought me closer to you,” Jinyoung hums, nuzzling into the touch like a cat. “H-how did it happen? Your death?”

“Up until the age of twenty I was the healthiest guy in the world.” Jaebum looks back at the memories, no longer in sadness or resentment. Despite so much time having passed since then, the last years of his life are crystal clear. “Then when I turned twenty one, I started getting sick more frequently. I was in the hospital multiple times a year and when they ran a CT scan, they discovered mutated cells in my pancreas.” Jinyoung gasps softly, reminiscent of Jaebum’s own mother when they were told the news. Only then it was new and ominous, with a lot more tears. “We found it at stage two, so my chances were really fifty-fifty. Unfortunately, I got the wrong fifty.”

It will always be the worst thing that has ever happened to his family, but at least in the years that have come, his parents had grieved enough to move on and start a new life while learning to live without him.

Jinyoung’s trembling hand clenches his own as he ultimately pictures the ill-fated end of his life. Jaebum drags his thumb over Jinyoung’s soft flesh in hopes to calm his nerves.

“Eventually they put me into a medically induced coma, and then my body just stopped fighting.”

For the first time since they’ve been snuggled up together, Jinyoung lifts his head in concern. He hovers over Jaebum, their faces only a foot apart as he finds his tired eyes. “Did it hurt? When you passed?”

Jaebum shakes his head, caught mootly in Jinyoung’s deep stare. “There was no pain. I woke up feeling even better than I did before I got sick.”

“So being dead for you, is better than being alive?”

Immediately disliking the topic transition, Jaebum squeezes Jinyoung’s hand. He doesn’t want to lead Jinyoung into thinking that in order to live, you have to die. “In the moment it was, because the pain I had felt for so many years was gone. I was neither alive nor dead, but even though the pain was gone over time I realized that there was nothing that compared to being alive, even when I was sick.”

“Do you miss it?”

“Every damn day,” Jaebum says honestly, fighting back the resentment for being trapped like a mouse in a cage. He’ll never truly feel the joys of this life, and he’s accepted it. “Where I am now, I’m stuck in the middle, neither dead nor alive. I miss being able to feel the sun on my face when I walk outside, or the frigid biting cold weather.” Nights spent with his family by the fire as the snow fell from outside, his parents would sing in the kitchen as mouth-watering aromas filled the air. That’s when Jaebum was the happiest.

“There’s a hunger inside me to feel hunger. I wish I could taste the pleasures of food again or take a sip of water. I actually miss water,” he laughs to lighten the tension forming like a bubble around them. Jinyoung’s smile stops short, his face still close enough that Jaebum can see the pity etched into the lines. “I can’t get drunk either, I can’t breathe in fresh air, or experience the pleasures of the body anymore.”

“I miss the warmth of human intimacy and it eats away at me every waking moment.” There’s a dry crack in his throat, but he works through it. He’s never said this out loud before, not to another person either. “I have no one with me. My parents have long since died and moved on to heaven, probably waiting for the day I walk through the golden gates. I have no brothers or sisters, no friends to enjoy, and no partner to call my own. I’m not in physical pain anymore, only paralyzing agony from being left in solitude.” His voice breaks on the last syllable, and Jinyoung doesn’t miss it. “The only time I can even feel normal is when…”

Jinyoung also doesn’t miss the implications of Jaebum’s speech, his breath faintly hitching. If Jinyoung hadn’t gradually hovered closer, Jaebum wouldn’t have even heard it. But he does hear it, and he feels the way Jinyoung’s breathing stops short above him, waiting.

“Is when I’m with you.”

Once the words have slipped past Jaebum’s lips, Jinyoung’s face falls. His lips tremble visibly where they’ve parted on a low gasp, and his eyes shine with a glossy layer of wetness that wasn’t there before.

“Jaebum hyung, I’m so sorry.” Jinyoung blinks, letting a stray tear fall from his eye. It lands directly on Jaebum’s cheek and rolls down slowly, mirroring his own.

Jaebum pretends for a moment that it belongs to him, basking in the pleasure of it trickling down his face. It’s warm and familiar, and when the tear is dried it’s immediately replaced by the feeling of Jinyoung’s pleasant touch cradling the side of his face. His thumb brushes away any tear streak left as he gazes down at Jaebum tenderly, their noses barely an inch apart now.

The moment is so intimate and raw that it knocks Jaebum back blindly as he chases out the heat of Jinyoung’s body leaning into his. He’s too far consumed by the sensation that he’s powerless to stop Jinyoung from leaning in the rest of the way and closing the gap between them.

Jaebum gasps softly as Jinyoung timidly presses his lips to his own, momentarily paralyzed as the foreign yet recognizable sensation takes his body over. The touch is plushy and light, just how he’d imagined Jinyoung’s lips would feel like.

Like he’s testing the waters Jinyoung’s lips are gentle on his so as not to come off too strong, but Jaebum gets so mesmerized by the feeling he can’t help but sigh into Jinyoung’s mouth as he parts his lips cautiously.

Jaebum meets the action feverishly, drowning in the feeling of Jinyoung’s lips as they move against his softly, begging Jaebum to keep the rhythm. Their mouths smack hotly against each other, Jaebum letting out a low hum of pleasure when Jinyoung’s body curls deeper into his. Jinyoung had always held a nice temperature to the touch, but now he’s radiating with a fiery heat that melts Jaebum into the pillows and turns his body to goo.

It’s crazy that he can feel this way from just a single kiss alone; not even the shared touches with any of his hookups or boyfriends when he was alive felt electric like this.

And as much as Jaebum wants to let Jinyoung take his time with him, indulge in his heat as he maps out his entire mouth, there’s a voice of reason in his head telling him the situation is wrong. Not only is Jinyoung alive and Jaebum the exact opposite, but there’s an undeniable twist in his gut when he remembers the little boy in Jinhae who once called him his best friend. Jaebum snaps back to reality as he realizes what he’s doing.

“Stop, we can’t.”

Jinyoung scrambles up in confusion as Jaebum pulls away, lips red and pupils blown. “What? Why not?”

“Because Jinyoung, it’s not right.”

“What do you mean it’s not right?” Jinyoung accuses crossly, hurt evident where he looks at Jaebum where’s he’s moved to the other side of the room, as far away from him as possible. “Holding my hand, laying with me until I fall asleep, and kissing my forehead when you think I don’t know doesn’t feel right to you? You just implied it’s the only thing you can feel.”

“That’s not what I meant.”

How can he explain how he feels to Jinyoung like this? How Jinyoung was once this child he cared for deeply, like he was the little brother Jaebum never had, and now his feelings have twisted into something else like those years never existed in the first place?

Everything about it felt wrong. From their age difference to the fact that there really was no age difference anymore, and Jinyoung was an adult who was capable of making his own decisions. Maybe the wrongest part of all was that it didn’t feel wrong, not one bit.

When Jinyoung holds his hand, it doesn’t feel wrong. When they lay together for hours, Jaebum feels nothing bad of the sort. When they laugh and spend time together, it’s nothing but pure feelings of happiness that has Jaebum begging for the next moment of it. And just now when they kissed, it was like a newfound breath of life was inhaled into his lungs. He felt joyful and wanted, like Jinyoung had filled the lines of his sketch with bright colors of love. Most of all, he didn’t feel the tired ache of loneliness anymore.

“Then what did you mean? Me kissing you? You can’t tell me you didn’t feel _something_ just now.”

But despite how right it all feels, Jaebum could never take advantage of Jinyoung like that, not with their history together. He’d never forgive himself.

He’s not even facing Jinyoung anymore, body turned towards the mirror on his dresser where he stares at himself in disgust. “Even if there are feelings, we can’t submit to them.”

“So you do have feelings for me.”

In the mirror, Jaebum watches as Jinyoung rises from the bed to step closer to him. He doesn’t dare turn around, head cowering down in shame.

“I shouldn’t.”

“Why?” Jinyoung asks incredulously. “Because you’re an angel and you have some code you have to abide?”

“Because I’m _your_ angel _._ ” Jaebum’s grown numb to the lie by now. His role as Jinyoung’s guardian is all it’ll ever be, a _guardian._ There’s also the fact that he feels too much guilt from hiding his true self and lying to the boy before him for most of his life. “Because I’ve known you since you were a child, Jinyoung. When I look at you, I still see that six year old boy I cared for when he fell off the swing at recess. It’s all wrong.”

“But I’m not that sad little boy anymore,” Jinyoung pleads with the most confident of voices, stepping closer. Suddenly, his arms are wrapping around Jaebum’s waist to bring their bodies flush together. Jaebum doesn’t refute the touch, closing his eyes as Jinyoung hooks his chin over his shoulder. Their eyes catch in the reflective surface. “I’ve grown up. You knew me for less than a year of my life, it’s not like you preyed upon me like a child predator. You guided me like a brother and then you left. I’m a whole new person now, Jaebum hyung, and I haven’t seen you as a brother - you’re so much more now.”

Jaebum understands, he does. They’ve grown separately, and Jinyoung’s caught up to him now. While Jaebum no longer cares for Jinyoung like a brother anymore it’s still a path he fears going down, for their futures and his own sanity. Besides, it would never work, Jaebum’s dead and can’t give Jinyoung what he needs.

Jaebum doesn’t pretend like this isn’t killing him inside, that his invisible heart doesn’t shatter into a million pieces when he unfurls Jinyoung’s arms from around his waist and turns to face him finally.

“I’m sorry, Jinyoung. We can’t.”

Only when Jaebum turns around, Jinyoung is gone. Not only is Jinyoung gone, but his entire room has disappeared, down to the last nook and cranny. Instead of the white walls of Jinyoung’s bedroom Jaebum is surrounded by a deep blue sky and birds that fly directly over head. He looks around and finds himself standing at the top of an office building that overlooks Seoul’s skyline, realizing it’s himself that’s suddenly disappeared, not Jinyoung.

The only question was why.

The sound of shoes walking catches Jaebum’s attention from behind, and when he spins around to face the intruder he’s taken aback by Mark watching him idly, hands in his pockets. Worry replaces any surprise Jaebum has facing Mark, knowing that any time his old reaper shows up, nothing good comes from it.

“Mark, what’s going on?”

The reaper is evidently disappointed, if the scowl on his face is anything to go by. “You’re caught up in that boy again.”

Jaebum freezes. He wonders if Mark has been keeping tabs on him again - wants to know what he’s seen, and if this meeting was coincidence or if it’s because of the events that have just transpired. “So what?” He bites. “I’m being careful this time, I’ve never been late to an assignment or slacked off on the job.”

“I know you haven’t.” Mark sounds understanding, eyes softening. “But they don’t care.”

“They?” Jaebum gulps. He could only be talking about-

“The Powers That Be,” Mark finishes. “They’ve been keeping a close watch over you. They know you’re diligent and haven’t lost a soul, but you’re still breaking their rules. They’re asking you to stop.”

Mark had once said when the Powers find a distraction, they find a way to eliminate it. They must know about his perverse feelings for Jinyoung and vice versa, and this last moment pushed them to finally act on it. “Tell them not to worry, I made sure Jinyoung knew we could never be together. They don’t have to worry about us-”

“No Jaebum, that isn’t what this is about,” Mark corrects in a disappointed tone, mouth pinching closed.

Now Jaebum’s even more nervous than before, he doesn’t like what Mark is getting at. “What do you mean?”

“You and the boy. You can’t see each other anymore.”

“Excuse me?” Jaebum asks rhetorically, anger and confusion building in his chest. Mark ripped him away from Jinyoung to inform him that the powers wanted them to stay away from each other? After they graciously gave him a second chance at being Jinyoung’s guardian and living up to the promise he made his father all those years ago? “I don’t understand, they sent you down here to tell me I can’t see Jinyoung anymore?”

Mark nods grimly. “I’m sorry, Jaebum. They figured you would have learned the first time that reaper-human relationships begin and end at death.”

This wasn’t happening, not for a second time. He just got Jinyoung back, and they were going to rip him away again just like that? Like Jaebum hasn’t felt like himself in years, a piece of him having broken off the first time he left Jinyoung in shambles. With Jinyoung by his side again, Jaebum finally feels the puzzle of his conscious self completed, and he doesn’t want that taken away. He’s not ready, not when Jinyoung looks at him like he’s the only person in the world, and not when Jaebum’s come to hold him so dear to his heart.

In the past, Jaebum had questioned if reapers could even feel the pleasures of love. Now in this moment, he’s sure he does, because even thinking about Jinyoung makes everything just a little bit brighter.

He can’t do what he’s being asked of. “If they figured I would have learned, why would they have brought him back to me then?” He sneers, pinching back what almost feels like a wetness forming at the lines of his eyes. “If the Powers control everything, wouldn’t they have seen this coming? They knew what would happen yet they brought us back together. And for what? To let me fall for him only to take him away again?”

Mark steps forward, shaking his head. “The Powers have control over life and death,” he informs with a frown. “But when someone chooses to love, that’s an act of free will.”

Inside Jaebum, he begins bubbling with white hot hate and anger. Not at Mark of course, but the fact that once more, he’s not in control of his own destiny. First his tragic death that broke his parents hearts, then being thrown into a reaper role he never asked for, abandoning Jinyoung the first time, and now being forced to do it all over again.

Jaebum’s over it. He’s going to take that power back and finally have some control over his own life. “Then it’s an act of free will to continue to love him.”

“Jaebum,” Mark breathes in genuine concern. Jaebum knows Mark isn’t the bad guy here - they’ve respected each other from the beginning - he’s just the messenger. “You know what they’ll do if you disobey their order-”

“No!” He exclaims in fury, finding it becoming harder and harder to breathe. “I’m tired of them thinking they can do whatever they want! You said it yourself, they control life and death, that’s it. They will _not_ take him away from me,” he huffs brokenly. “If they try, they will have to answer to me.”

The threat hangs in the air ominously, leaving Mark silent in the bluster of the high winds. He pleads with Jaebum one last time with his eyes, but the stubborn reaper has already made up his mind. In the end he accepts Jaebum’s decision with pity written in his body language.

Jaebum ignores the rest of Mark’s worry and decides he’s done following the orders of the Powers That Be. He’s done being a mindless reaper working day in and day out on a conveyor belt. There’s only one place he wants to be, only one person he wants to share this life with.

By the time he materializes in Jinyoung’s room, it’s hours after their argument and Jaebum’s bones are heavy with a tiredness he’s never felt before. Jinyoung’s sat on his bed with a book in hand, and despite the scowl as he reads, he’s still the picture of beauty. With the first glance at him, the tiredness that consumes Jaebum’s body dissipates and everything burns brighter.

Jinyoung notices the flurry of movement in the corner of the room and sets the book down with a frown. The hurt is still fresh in his system, but the moment his eyes land on Jaebum the frown is replaced with a look of concern as Jinyoung runs to his side without hesitation.

“Oh god, Jaebum hyung what’s wrong? Where did you go?”

The tips of Jinyoung’s fingers trail to his cheeks, and it’s then that Jaebum registers the wetness overflowing under his eyes. He must have been crying and he didn’t even realize - not that he even knew he could - all at the thought of losing Jinyoung again.

The man in question visibly distresses over him, thumbs ridding his cheeks of the substance. It makes Jaebum only cry harder.

“Hey, it’s okay,” Jinyoung comforts, tugging Jaebum roughly into his arms. In return, Jaebum wraps one arm around Jinyoung’s waist and cards his other hand through his hair, tucking his sobbing face in the younger’s neck.

“Please don’t leave me,” Jaebum sobs brokenly. “Please don’t.”

“What? Of course I won’t leave you.” Jinyoung squeezes his arms around Jaebum tighter, like he could slip through them at any second. “I thought you were leaving me, you disappeared so suddenly. Where did you go?”

“It was the Powers,” he breathes out as the flow of tears begins slowing down. “They want me to stop seeing you again.”

Jinyoung stills. “Oh.”

Wrapped in his embrace, Jaebum fills with icy fear. Jinyoung’s only said one word, but the defeated tone as he breathes it out says so much more. Jinyoung has already accepted in the moment that Jaebum has to leave him again unexpectedly; but that’s not what Jaebum wants him to think at all. He doesn’t want to come across as giving up on this, and certainly would rather Jinyoung not feel the ache of defeat, not after everything they’ve been together.

“But I essentially told them to fuck off because-” Jaebum grips Jinyoung even tighter, showing him he’s not going anywhere. “Because I can’t lose you again.” There’s a faint hitch in Jinyoung’s throat as the words are spoken out loud, and when Jaebum pulls back to gage Jinyoung’s reaction, the human is watching him with a bated breath. There’s nothing left for Jaebum to do but tell Jinyoung the honest truth. “I’m sorry about what I said before, making it seem like I didn’t want you. Because I do, Jinyoung. I want you so badly it hurts.”

“Oh, Jaebum hyung,” Jinyoung gasps. Fighting back the own wet sensation pooling in his eyes, Jinyoung digs his fingers into the fabric of Jaebum’s coat, lower lip trembling. “But the Powers can do anything, what if they don’t like us-”

“I don’t care what those assholes want,” Jaebum snaps, his pent up frustration and anger boiling over. They weren’t taking this from him, he’d fight tooth and nail to keep this moment of peace forever. “I love you too much to be scared of what they could do to me.”

Their eyes lock in the moment, Jinyoung sniffling as he leans their foreheads together. “You love me?”

Jaebum, who once thought reapers were incapable of love and believed it was only a luxury afforded to the living, knows that with every fiber of his being, existent or not, stuck in this limbo between life and death, that he loves Park Jinyoung so much it kills him inside. Jinyoung consumes his thoughts every waking moment. He’s under Jaebum’s skin like an itch he’s unable to scratch.

When Jinyoung isn’t around Jaebum is suffocating silently, the only remedy being Jinyoung’s voice or the smile that brings light into the darkest corner of Jaebum’s life. He would give it all up for Jinyoung, risking his entire existence for the chance to feel their love flowing through his blood.

“More than anything I’ve ever loved before,” Jaebum reaffirms, finding Jinyoung’s hand where it’s tangled in his coat. He drags it to his chest, letting Jinyoung’s palm settle over the fabric of his shirt. “Sometimes when I’m with you, if I stay very still, I can almost feel my heart beating.”

“I can feel it too.” Jinyoung laughs through the tears welling up, playing into Jaebum’s little fantasy. In a flash, he’s snaking his free hand around Jaebum’s other, mirroring the action as he sets it over the gentle rhythm of his own. “My heart,” he whispers, gazing deep into Jaebum’s eyes soulfully. “It has only ever belonged to you. I’ve been waiting for you my whole life.”

Closing his eyes, Jaebum lets the soft thumping of Jinyoung’s heart beat consume him, the touch melting into his fingertips. Jinyoung admitted it belonged to him, and it always had. When Jaebum opens his eyes, Jinyoung’s tears have all but faded, and Jaebum is ready for Jinyoung’s love to swallow him whole.

“Kiss me,” he pleads.

It doesn’t take much for Jinyoung to get the message, dropping Jaebum’s hands so his own can come up to cradle the sides of his face. In the next instant, Jinyoung’s lips are pressing to his with a touch as light as a feather, daring Jaebum to meet him the rest of the way. With a bubbling confidence to prove his affections, Jaebum tugs Jinyoung to him roughly by the collar of his shirt and kisses him with a fever neither can seem to sweat out.

Mouths moving in almost perfect harmony, Jaebum parts his lips and swallows the sound of Jinyoung sighing into him. Jinyoung takes this opportunity to swipe his tongue over Jaebum’s bottom lip, pleased when he’s met with Jaebum moaning faintly. Jaebum meets Jinyoung’s tongue with his own in hot wet pleasure, but he lets the younger keep control of everything, only wishing to bask in every second of the moment that transpires between them.

The flaming desire he has for the man before him only burns hotter when Jinyoung brings their bodies flush together, and with every inch of their fronts in contact, Jaebum grows dizzy as the heat from Jinyoung’s body wraps him in a blanket of want.

When the desire becomes too fiery and Jaebum’s literally crawling out of his shirt, Jinyoung doesn’t hesitate to let Jaebum’s signature coat fall to the floor as he gets his hands under his shirt to touch skin.

“Please,” Jaebum begs, struggling to keep up with the pace Jinyoung’s setting but at the same time unable to get enough of it. “Touch me,” he whines, helping as Jinyoung disposes of his shirt, leaving him naked from the waist up. “Just…” He takes the initiative himself and slides Jinyoung’s hands over his body, patience lost as he begs desperately. “Touch me.”

Raking his hands over every inch of Jaebum’s body, Jinyoung makes sure to drag his mouth over the firm skin of his collarbones and chest, sighing in pleasure when Jaebum tangles his fingers in his hair and tugs gently.

When Jinyoung’s open mouthed kisses trail down to the lines on his stomach he presses farther, hovering over the planes of his hips. He looks up, eyes wide and hair a perfectly unstyled mess, and makes a show of tugging his own shirt over his head as he meets Jaebum at eye level once more. They become locked in a mess of feverish kisses and kitten licks that has both of them growing hard in their pants, and when Jinyoung navigates Jaebum down onto his bed and crawls between his legs, their mouths are bruising and slick with spit as their erections glide against each other.

Jaebum groans at the feeling of hot pleasure that shoots throughout his body, bending his knees to wrap around Jinyoung’s waist where’s he’s hovering above. It feels too good and too right, but Jaebum is craving more. He wants Jinyoung’s skin on every part of him, every intimate touch that the younger can give him. He wants to feel Jinyoung inside and out.

“I want to feel you.” Jaebum pants in between kisses, head falling back into the pillows as Jinyoung sucks over where the pulse would be in his neck of he was still alive.

It doesn’t take long for the rest of their clothes to be ripped away and forgotten about, Jaebum following as Jinyoung leads him into the sense of euphoria one could only get in this moment, wrapped in the body of another.

A soul crosses through his mind’s radar, but he pushes the image as far back into his brain as possible, only focused on the pleasures of the flesh as Jinyoung curls around him and their naked bodies become one.

***

The early morning creeps through the blinds as the sun breaks blearily over the horizon, basking the room in a flurry of golden hues. Jaebum’s eyes open and take in his surroundings, blankets thrown over the lower half of his nude body. Tucked under his arm Jinyoung sleeps peacefully, transdimensionally illuminated by the glimmer of the sun. His eye lashes cast a shadow against his cheekbones and his lips are parted as he breathes evenly, chest having fallen into a steady rhythm.

Jaebum’s reminded of their night of passion, how they took their time exploring the uncharted areas of skin as they made love under the sheets. The moment seemed endless as Jinyoung split Jaebum in half and pulled him apart, only for Jaebum to stitch himself back together when he took Jinyoung himself and watched as the younger faded into the mattress.

It had been the most exhilarating moment of Jaebum’s existence as a reaper, having forgotten how powerful two bodies could be when they interlocked and brought each other to a climax of sweet euphoria.

In this moment now with his lover, Jaebum is truly happy. He’s felt Jinyoung’s love flow through him in waves as Jinyoung reached his peak inside him, as each kiss was pressed to his skin, as he was worked open and left a panting mess. Jinyoung received Jaebum’s own love through every electrifying nail raking down his back and chant of his name, giving in to the wetness of Jaebum’s mouth and warmth of his tongue. Now with Jinyoung cuddling into his side, Jaebum brushes the tousled hair out of his eyes and sighs.

However, there’s something inside of him trying to claw its way to the surface, and no matter how much Jinyoung’s love masks it, it still finds a way to break through.

It’s guilt.

By making the decision to give up his reaper duties to be with Jinyoung, Jaebum knew that whatever souls he was assigned to would awaken in the new plane unattended. What happened to them then, he couldn’t say. They’d be lost, forced to roam the plane of the dead in whatever form they were given. They wouldn't be delivered to their eternal fate, meaning an innocence soul would be robbed of its chance in heaven. Jaebum knew the consequences of his actions, and in the awful moment of Mark’s ultimatum from the Powers, Jaebum hadn’t cared. He only had eyes for Jinyoung, thinking he could overlook the fact that some people would be deprived of their chance of eternal peace because of him.

Now that he’s awake, the guilt of ignoring not one, but two souls the past night eats away at him until he feels the physical affects of nausea overtaking him. He knows it’s impossible, but he shifts away from Jinyoung anyway, sitting up as the room spins.

When the walls are still Jaebum blinks a few times and startles in place when he catches sight of a familiar figure standing over Jinyoung’s bed. Mark, arms at his side and expression looking even more disappointed than before, shakes his head defeatedly.

Jaebum fails to come up with an explanation for the compromising position - it’s exactly what Mark knows it to be. Jaebum wouldn’t have time to anyway, as Mark’s hand shoots out to him as a sigh escapes his lips.

Two fingers are pressed to Jaebum’s forehead. “Mark, what are you-”

In a bright flash of light Jaebum’s body jolts backwards and his eyes roll back into his head. When he comes to seconds later, he’s no longer sitting on Jinyoung’s bed in his room. No, instead he’s surrounded by nothing but white. Never-ending and blinding white. It’s not a room and it’s definitely not part of the outside world, leading Jaebum’s mind to believe in the other endless possibilities of what it could be.

Was it-?

No. It couldn’t be heaven. If it were heaven, Jaebum wouldn’t feel the existential dread rising through his veins.

He glances around, trying to find any sort of way out, trying to place why Mark would send him here. He looks down - at least he thinks he’s looking down - and finds he’s wearing his normal apparel. At least Mark had the sense not to send him anywhere naked.

“Mark-yah!” He calls into the endless abyss, only to be met with an eerie silence as he looks around.

Then, out of nowhere, a tiny voice rings out from behind him. “Im Jaebum.”

There’s a youthful tone to the voice, almost like a child is speaking to him, but it booms with confidence that a youngling could not. When he spins on his heels to confront the person head on, he’s startled to discover the form of a young boy standing before him.

The child looks no more than seven or eight years old, dressed in older wear from the early years of the new millenium. His plain white shirt is tucked into his cargo shorts, feet laced in worn sketchers that Jaebum finds oddly familiar. He then realizes he’s seen the exact same outfit before, but cannot for the life of him place where.

When his gaze crawls up to the boy’s face, his eyes are glowing in a lovely sky blue. Unable to see through the eyes Jaebum is forced to take in the rest of the child’s face, wondering why on earth the boy feels so familiar to him.

Then Jaebum notices the green-beaded bracelet wrapped around his right wrist, and it all comes flooding back to him in a flurry of memories that shake him to the core. It has been seventeen years, but he could never forget that perfect face.

He gulps. “Jinyoungie?”

The child shakes his head, watching Jaebum idly. “This form is only a manifestation for your comfort. We are not the boy.”

It’s Jinyoung’s voice, but most definitely not Jinyoung speaking. “W-we?”

This time, Jinyoung’s child form nods in confirmation. Then in three easy steps, he’s made his way to where Jaebum stands, reaching out to take his hand. Jaebum can only watch on in confusion as the boy wraps his tiny fingers around Jaebum’s own.

Without warning another bright flash of light knocks Jaebum onto his behind as images of his past flood the levees of his mind.

 _“You no longer exist in the natural world. This is the plane of existence, created by the Powers That Be.” “You almost lost a soul today, Jaebum. The Powers That Be don’t take to kindly to that.” “They know everything.” “The Powers That Be will do whatever it takes to remove the distraction.” “What do you mean, the ‘Powers’?” “The beings who control everything in the universe.”_ _“The Powers have control over life and death, but when someone chooses to love, that’s an act of free will.”_

Thrown back to reality, Jaebum gasps out. “You’re-”

“That is correct.” The child - no - the _Powers That Be_ say.

Stuck in a mindless position of disbelief, Jaebum takes a moment from to take the image of the Powers in. They’ve decided to take a physical form, one that Jaebum has a connection with, which can only mean the Powers That Be have no true body. They’re referred to as distinct yet disembodied beings, ones very few have had the opportunity to come across, yet alone view their true forms. Jaebum is either extremely special, or he’s in trouble and they’re looking for reparations. He knows it’s the latter.

“Where am I?”

Out of Jinyoung’s body a second and more distinct voice arises. Jaebum can only recognize it because their tone has shifted to a gentler one that immediately brings a sense of calm to his being.

“Can you not tell, my child?” The motherly speaker asks.

Suddenly, Jaebum’s heart seizes with fear. “Is this hell?”

“No, Im Jaebum.” The first voice of reason is back, looking across at him sternly. “We have brought you to our home. We need to make sure you understand that your actions have consequences, both good and bad.”

So this was about Jinyoung and their shared time together. Why else would they come to him in this form. He’s already dreading this speech.

“We understand that it will be hard, but you must not be with this boy anymore,” the Powers state with determination. “Because of your selfishness and lust, you’ve let two souls get trapped here where they do not belong.”

The words cut through Jaebum like a knife, their commandment constricting his heart in a vice grip. These were exactly the rules Jaebum was supposed to adhere to the first two times, and though he made good on it after the first confrontation with Mark, this time around he lost control. He’s messed up bad enough, ignoring scared and confused souls that the Powers That Be have come to him themselves to set him straight.

And they’re right, he was selfish. He was so consumed by the mere presence of Jinyoung in his life again that he became addicted to the imitation of the feeling of being alive. He loves Jinyoung, more than anything in the world. But it’s driven him to go rogue, and he doesn’t think he can stop.

“I’m sorry,” Jaebum tries, lips parted on the broken apology.

“We know you feel guilt inside for your actions,” the Powers empathize. “But your words are empty unless you do what is right and end things with him.”

“What happens if I don’t?” Inside, Jaebum fills with an anger he’s never felt before, exceeding all levels of his emotions, even when he was living. He doesn’t want to, even if he knows how selfish he’s being. Life without Jinyoung - Jaebum would never be happy. He fights back a wave of disgruntled tears that form in the heat of the moment, gritting through his teeth. “Will you kill him? Send me to hell?”

He thinks the motherly being is now speaking to him, her power over him enough to settle his anger when she uses Jinyoung’s hand to cup the side of his face. “We will do what we must to restore balance to existence.”

“I can’t.” He lets a single tear fall, voice breaking. He can’t ignore the fact that while he’s talking to the Powers, it’s still Jinyoung’s young form standing before him offering comfort. Jaebum lets his face fall into the palm of his hand. “I can’t reap souls for you anymore. I love him, I want to be with him.”

“You may love him, but you love humanity more.” They speak honestly, wiping away the tear that’s fallenwith pity. “It is the humanity in him that allows you to love this boy, Im Jaebum.”

It was true, all of it. Jaebum yearned for humanity. He bathed it, swaddled it, tucked it into bed at night and awaited its long return to him. He loves the creatures that roam the earth and what their tasked with doing, and sees the brightest of humanity inside Jinyoung. Jinyoung is a beacon of light that calls to him, and Jaebum is hesitant to let that go because he craves everything that Jinyoung is. But humanity isn’t just one man, and Jaebum knows this. It’s unfair of him to place it all on Jinyoung’s shoulders.

“Why me?” Jaebum pleads, voice cracked raw from his crying. “Why did you choose me to be your reaper? Why did I have to fall in love knowing I’ll never get to be with him?”

“Everything happens for a reason young one. And you will learn your place in this world.”

Jaebum brushes back his own tears, feeling more helpless now than he ever had before. He was brought here unexpectedly, and now he’s not even getting the answers he’s been yearning for from the moment he died. He hates this. He hates how despite everything, he’ll never fully be in control of his destiny.

“It’s not fair.”

“Nothing about life is fair, my child.” The Powers shake their head and step backwards to give him some room to breathe. Jaebum wonders if they know anything about fairness, having the ultimate power in the whole of time and existence itself. “If it were, you would have never died in that hospital all those years ago.”

“I’m so tired. I just want to go home, I want to be with my family again.” Jaebum’s beyond burned out, speaking mostly to himself as he falls further into a pit of self-pity and wallowing. Somehow, he doesn’t see it fit to blame the Powers. After all, they only control life and death. Everything that comes in between is an act of free will.

Reapers, angels, gatekeepers, the Powers That Be, they’re all here for the same reason: to keep the balance of existence. Without them, the whole of reality would crumble. Jaebum understands that now. Even if it’s isolated and humanity depriving, he’ll do it because he has to. It’s not fair, just the ways things are done.

“Soon,” Jinyoung’s voice comes out smaller, and for a moment, it’s like the Powers have dispersed and his little Jinyoungie is with him again. But the moment breaks. “In time you will see them again, and you will know peace. That is our promise to you.”

Two chubby fingers extend from Jinyoung’s hand before reaching out to him. They send a small tap to his forehead and he waits.

“Goodbye, Im Jaebum.” They say. “We will not meet again.”

There’s not a moment left for Jaebum to bid farewell, the bright flash of light dropping him back into the reality of the real world. His vision fades sluggishly to reveal the same white walls of Jinyoung’s room, only the lights are off, and Jinyoung’s nowhere to be seen.

There’s no telling how long Jaebum’s been gone, but it appears a definite amount of time has passed. What time it is or where Jinyoung has run off to will remain a mystery until the younger returns. The moment creeping upon them fills Jaebum with a heightened sense of dread that leaves his body trembling. He knows he’s made Jinyoung certain promises and Jinyoung vice versa, but it’s come to the point of no return, one Jaebum can’t look away from. It’s not just his will to save Jinyoung’s life, to make sure he lives long and with no regrets, but because Jaebum has a guilty conscience and a burning need to do the right thing. Whether ideal or not, he has a role to play and there are thousands of dead souls that need his help passing. He’ll be lonely for sure, now even more so without Jinyoung, but Jaebum will get over it because it’s all he can do.

As what will surely become his final moments in Jinyoung’s room, Jaebum takes his time looking over every detail - every paint scratch, item of clothing on the floor, the colorful pictures hung on the walls - if only to save it in his mind. Once the pain of the situation has dulled and Jaebum’s hurled through the healing process, he’ll want to look back on this place and remember what times were like when things were good. Outside, dark clouds loom overhead and rain droplets pelt against the window sideways streaks.

He sits at the edge of Jinyoung’s bed, thinking back to their night of passionate lovemaking. His head hits the pillows, their cases a soft scent of Jinyoung’s shampoo that kept Jaebum wishing he could live to breathe again. He drags his hands along the black comforter as he thinks about the arms that would surround him and the beating heart that filled his senses. He’ll never want to give this up, but he’s prepared himself to do so anyway. Jaebum closes his eyes and can still feel the lingering touch of Jinyoung’s plush lips on his, sparks flying like he’d been touched by a fairy. When he opens his eyes, he deems himself finally ready to let go.

Soon, there’s the faint sound of a door lock sliding into place, followed by a set of light footsteps that grow closer and closer with each passing second. Jaebum’s non-existent heart is in his throat as he waits like a deer in the headlights as Jinyoung opens the door to his room.

It takes a moment for Jinyoung to register the second body standing before him, heavy shoulders weighing him down from the possible longest shift of his life. The moment he catches sight of Jaebum, his entire demeanor shifts, tired lines etched into the corners of his eyes as he stares back at Jaebum with a mixture of anger and confusion.

“Jaebum?” He sounds hurt, bag dropping off his shoulder to fall unceremoniously on the floor. “Oh my god, where did you go? I’ve been calling you for weeks.”

Everything Jaebum’s been practicing in his mind dies out in his throat. Did Jinyoung say ‘weeks’? Not just a few minutes or hours, but more than a few days to be exact? “Weeks?” Jaebum gulps, trying hard not to think about Jinyoung left to wake up alone with no trace of him.

“I haven’t seen or heard from you in two weeks. You disappeared right after we…” Jinyoung trails off dismally, eyes cast down. It doesn’t take much to know exactly what he’s talking about. “It made me think you left because I wasn’t good enough.”

As much as he forced the thought away before, the picture bursts right into his mind of Jinyoung in bed alone and confused, hurt that Jaebum left without saying goodbye after their special moment. Two weeks with no word or appearance, Jaebum feels ashamed even if he wasn’t the one in control of the situation. He rushes to Jinyoung’s side without hesitation.

“No, Jinyoungie of course not I would never-” The correct words fail him, leaving his mouth parted as he figures out the right thing to say. He just needs Jinyoung to understand that he would never do a thing like that, hands coming up to hold his lover firmly by the arms. “Making love to you was probably the happiest moment of my whole existence.”

Jinyoung looks at him, _really_ looks at him, almost relieved by his words. Then another look, one of wondering uncertainty, emerges for Jaebum to see. “Then why does it look like you’re about to cry?”

Jaebum’s hand shoots to his face and feels the puffiness from his crying before, not realizing he was still the picture of battered and bruised. Jinyoung had always been able to read him well, and even if Jaebum doesn’t say it out loud, he always knows when something is troubling him. The only problem is he now has to confront it.

“The reason I was gone so long, is because time works differently where I was sent.” He watches Jinyoung’s reaction, noting the anger washed away from his face and replaced with a need for understanding. “A few minutes there must have been a couple weeks here.” 

“But where is ‘there’?”

“I don’t know exactly where I was, but I was sent there by the Powers That Be.”

“You-” Jinyoung blinks. His mouth parts on a small gasp that sounds deafening in the white noise of the room. “You met the Powers That Be? I thought they were some all powerful unseen force.”

“They are. They came to me in the form of a human,” Jaebum explains, but leaves the description at that. There’s no telling how Jinyoung would react to the image of his younger self coming to Jaebum because it’s what comforts him most. Jaebum’s still not sure how he feels about it either. He rips the bandaid off. “And the reason they sent me there, was because of you.”

Jinyoung stares back, doe-eyed and full of an innocence that would make a sinner change his ways. “Me?”

This man before him - his precious young lover - Jaebum cares so deeply and so foolishly that he doesn’t know how he’s going to live with himself after he breaks his heart again.

“I…” He stalls, hoping to omit certain details about why this has happened. Less people get hurt that way. “I disobeyed my orders, when we made love that night.” Jaebum gulps, feeling as Jinyoung’s eyes burn holes into his skin with how hard he’s staring, just trying to understand. “I was selfish and wanted you so much that I gave up my responsibilities. I did something terrible, Jinyoung-ah, and no amount of apologies can make it go away.”

“Hey, shhh.” Jinyoung hears the grief in his voice, pulling Jaebum in tighter with a comforting hand that then finds the side of his face. “It’s okay. Whatever it is, you can fix it, right? The Powers, they’ll understand I’m sure-”

“They understand too well,” informs Jaebum with a grim chuckle, wishing the Powers were watching him right now, to see his grief blossoming. “They know how much I feel for you and they know that I’m willing to risk everything to be with you. I know I said things would be different this time around, but I messed up. I can’t see you anymore.”

“No, don’t say that. I just got you back.” All too perfect with his optimism and determination, Jinyoung is unknowingly making things harder than they needed to be. He really was an immaculate human being, one that Jaebum could never deserve. “Whatever you did, we can fix it, okay? We can go to the Powers and explain to them that we-”

“No, Jinyoung!” With a shout Jaebum knocks Jinyoung’s hands away from his body, leaving his star-crossed lover to startle back with a frown. Jaebum just needs him to understand. “There is no fixing this! Even if we did and we could be together, you don’t know what they’d do when they found out!”

“Then tell me!” Jinyoung grows impatient with every passing second, his own irritation returning as Jaebum continues to skirt around the point of his visit.

The words are still as daunting and ominous as the day Mark spoke them to him. “They’d remove my distraction by any means necessary.”

There’s a tremble in Jinyoung’s hands now, quick to realize the implications of the words. “You’re saying they’d kill me?” Jaebum nods in confirmation, head dizzy. The next thing out of Jinyoung’s mouth finishes him off to knock Jaebum back blind. “Well maybe that would be better.”

Jaebum sees red. “Don’t you dare say that.”

At the sight of Jaebum’s face paling and jaw clenching, Jinyoung knows he’s fucked up. “I’m just saying-”

“Just saying? You know how lucky you are that you get to have this life, Jinyoung-ah?” Jaebum grits out, beyond upset that the younger would even give such a thought to throw his life away. Jinyoung flinches back, at his harsh tone, but Jaebum doesn’t care. “There are so many people who would _kill_ to be given the life you have, and you just want to throw it all away?”

“No, I didn’t mean - Just listen,” Jinyoung pleads despite Jaebum mentally clearing himself out of this conversation. “You said it was painless. If I died, I could be with you. Maybe we could convince the Powers to make me an angel too. You wouldn’t be lonely and we would be happy and-”

“Jinyoung stop!” Jaebum’s enraged tone reverberates off the walls, sending Jinyoung shrinking back into himself. Jaebum doesn’t even care how harsh he’s coming across, he just wants Jinyoung to stop entertaining the ludicrous idea. “Just stop this nonsense! Look at me when I tell you this.” To further emphasize his words, Jaebum snakes his fingers around Jinyoung’s arms to keep him in place. Jinyoung fights back gallantly, but Jaebum’s vice grip is too much for him to overcome. The naive boy is left to stare open-mouthed into Jaebum’s persistent eyes. Jaebum enunciates slowly and with such conviction so that Jinyoung will hopefully get it through his stubborn head. “You are going to live a long and prosperous life. You are going to get married to someone you love, and you’re going to have all the children you can dream of. You will enjoy the life you’ve been given, with or without me in it.”

There’s a shaky breath that leaves Jinyoung’s chest as he pinches his eyes tight. Jaebum realizes now that despite being dead the Powers must have fashioned some resemblance of a heart inside him, because when Jinyoung glances back to him, glossy eyed and tears threatening to fall, it breaks. 

“But I don’t want to.”

“You have to.” Jaebum is firm; he can’t take no for an answer. It’s even more than Jinyoung casually bringing up the end of his life that gets Jaebum fuming, but also the implication of what he would want to become, and after all this time, Jaebum’s never told him the truth. “I will not stand by and let them turn you into what I am. I’d rather die a thousand deaths than ever see you end up like me.”

Jinyoung’s eyebrows knit together in bewilderment. “But you help people.”

The younger’s stare of misunderstanding tells Jaebum that this is it. The moment he’s been dreading since he started the lie; he has to tell Jinyoung the truth. Then maybe it will be easier for Jinyoung to see him go.

Jaebum hesitates a moment, readying himself for the outcome. “I do, but I’m not what you think I am.”

“But you’re an angel,” Jinyoung gulps nervously, searching his face for an understanding. “Aren’t you?”

Jaebum’s eyes fall in shame. “No, I’m not.” The sound of Jinyoung’s breath catching is amplified by the dreaded silence that follows. “I’m a reaper.”

“A reaper?” Jinyoung almost doesn’t believe it at first. “You mean those things that kill people?”

“No, we do not kill people,” Jaebum reaffirms anxiously, blood thumping loudly in his eardrums. This was his original fear and why he kept the secret for so long - he didn’t want Jinyoung to believe he was a killer. “We harvest their souls and escort them to their eternal resting place,” he informs, not the most ideal description of himself. “I’m sorry I never told you the truth.”

For a moment, Jinyoung says nothing, standing numbly in Jaebum’s arms. His gaze is cast at Jaebum’s chest, lost in the wandering thoughts of his mind as he pieces everything together. His watery eyes are lifeless as they stare off, and for once Jaebum doesn’t know what Jinyoung is thinking.

“Seventeen years,” he whispers incredulously, shaking Jaebum’s hands from him with an uneasy force that says he’s beyond upset. “You lied to me for seventeen years. And for what? To get me to trust you? To prove you were some kind of good guy?”

“You were so young, Jinyoung-ah. I didn’t want to scare you with what I really was.”

“But you had the opportunity to tell me now, and you didn’t.” With each passing second, Jinyoung’s voice raises in volume. His eyes spill over with burning, angry tears that leave his cheeks with a stained pink flush. His lips gasp out in fear, “Is anything you told me the truth? Do you even love me?”

There’s no way to fix what he’s done, but the least Jaebum can do is let Jinyoung know that loving him was never a part of the lie he built. “You know that I do-”

“Did my father even send you here to watch over me? Or was I some little thing you found and decided to have fun with?” Jinyoung heaves in shorts breaths, panic setting in.

“Jinyoung I would never-” Jaebum pleads, his own face mirroring the dampness of Jinyoung’s own. “Your father used his last moments to make me promise that his son was looked after while he was gone.”

As Jinyoung seems to consider his words genuinely, Jaebum begins to fill with hope. But then something strikes Jinyoung suddenly, a flash of realization shining across his sobbing face. In less than a second he’s struck with an unmistakable grief.

“It was you,” he chokes, covering his mouth with the back of his hand in horror. “You were my father’s reaper. You took him from me.”

“No, Jinyoung,” Jaebum shakes in trepidation, attempting to reaffirm Jinyoung of what he’s really made for. Only, Jinyoung backs away in disgust, and Jaebum’s attempt fails. “I did not take your father from you, I promise you. I only guided his soul to your mother’s in heaven.”

“How do you expect me to believe you?” He cries with fists clenched by his sides. “You've lied to me my whole life and kept the most significant things from me. Whether you killed him or not, you still took him away from me.”

“Jinyoung...” Jaebum tries, but his dismayed lover turns from him, hurting greater than he ever imagine possible.

Jinyoung has none of it. “It’s a good thing they told you to stay away from me,” he grits through clenched teeth bitterly. “Because if you weren't dead already, I would kill you myself.”

The gravity of the words feel like a bullet has just ripped through Jaebum’s heart. Now he’s bleeding and cold, Jinyoung left to watch as he slowly spills out before him. He never expected it to unfold like this.

“I’m so sorry-”

“Get out!” Jinyoung thrashes, resentful tears trailing down his face. “Get the fuck out of here, Jaebum!”

As if to punish Jaebum even more that his resentful words and loathing betrayal, Jinyoung rips the bracelet from his wrist and lets it fly in Jaebum’s direction. It misses him, floating right through him, but it collides with the far wall with such a force that it breaks on impact. The cherished marbles that Jaebum had fought hard to get, that Jinyoung had loved above everything else, tumble to the ground with unimportance.

The anger radiating off Jinyoung’s shoulders hits Jaebum like a truck. The human has made his choice then, and Jaebum would be foolish to wait around and make his life even more unsure than it already is.

He doesn’t say goodbye when he goes. He only leaves Jinyoung a blearily-eyed mess in the corner of his room, gut-wracking sobs taking over his body as he curls in on himself and waits for the rain to stop. The song fades out.

This is the last time Jaebum will meet Park Jinyoung for a while.


	3. III

_Years Later_

 

Time does what it’s best at and crawls along slowly in the vacuum life is contained in. Humans are born, they live, and then they die. It’s all the same.

It never gets any easier.

At least as time drifts on like a feather in the wind and the wounds of the past grow smaller, Jaebum has finally discovered his place in this world. He’s not being punished, as he once suspected. In his first years, Jaebum believed his new existence set his fate for an eternity of unhappiness. With no one around Jaebum felt like solitude was the only thing that greeted him at the end of the day, but that couldn’t be farther from the truth. He was never alone in his daily passings. Every moment of every day was someone new, from the old to the young, the sick and the misfortunate, the brave and the cowardice. Jaebum was met by thousands bright souls, learning about their lives, the people they loved, and their ultimate passing. They wouldn’t stay for long, but there was always someone - he was never truly alone.

Becoming a reaper was not thrust upon him as some eternal torment by the Powers That Be. It was a mere part of life, a job that he alone had been entrusted with. Reaping was his gift to the world after his passing, a momentary present that he could give back to the souls he delivered and the people he’s saved.

It took him far too long to realize this, and he’d sacrificed so many things in the process - those he loved, his humanity, and the importance of existence itself. Now Jaebum’s humbled in the life he’s been given, morally at peace with the turn of events he’s been showered with. As the years pass on Jaebum becomes a symbol of hope and prosperity in the reaper community, and he’s honored to be regarded by his peers as such.

As the sands of life pass through the hourglass Jaebum gradually loses his connections with humanity on earth; he has to in his line of business or else he’ll end up broken again. He misses it, but he stopped longing for it long ago.

No longer being tied to humans lets Jaebum rest easily. With no one he loves around to conflict with his duties, there are no more lies, no more betrayal, no broken dreams and no shattered hearts. Jaebum may be numb to the past that defined him, but he doesn’t forget.

The scars of his lost love are littered in stitches woven into his skin that ache in the worst of ways, but Jaebum becomes so in tune with himself that the pain dulls as it fades into the foreground. He doesn’t think about Park Jinyoung, he can’t afford to. Jinyoung never calls to him, and in the blur of Jaebum discovering his purpose in the world and tapping into his potential, he doesn’t even know how many years have past since the two had parted ways, drowned out by the rage that had consumed them both.

It’s good that Jinyoung pushed him away in the act that he did, it saved them both from complete heartbreak. At least with Jinyoung hating him, Jaebum could move on knowing the younger man wasn’t actively waiting around for him. Though hearts were broken in other ways from his deceit for so long, it was better like this.

At least that’s what Jaebum used to tell himself.

In any case, what’s done is done. There’s no use crying over the past, not when there’s a bright future with heavenly plans awaiting him. Jaebum hasn’t the slightest clue when his time as a reaper will be up and the Powers will finally escort him home, but he feels something thrumming inside his soul that pushes him towards his cases with a fever. It’s coming soon, and the other reapers he passes by on his daily assignments can feel it too.

Mark had been relieved of his duties not long ago, and his soul was sent to rest eternally with the family that had passed before Jaebum was even born. They had a last goodbye before Mark’s soul was finally delivered, the older confiding that Jaebum was always someone he cared for deeply. Jaebum felt the same way despite their initial push and pull over his conflict of interest, sad to part ways with a friend but overjoyed that he could rest forever. He never sees Mark again and it’s better that way. His friend deserves his peace - he’s earned it.

Jaebum floats through the pale blue of the sky, imagining the rays of the golden sun wrapping him in a blanket of warmth. If he closes his eyes, he can picture his mother and father and all the friends that have died over the years huddling around him.

Then, when it’s quiet, he’s shown the image of the next soul he’s supposed to deliver. It catches him off guard, losing his balance where he drifts endlessly without a clue. When he steadies his body he double checks the image in disbelief, humming to himself in disappointment when his hunches are confirmed.

It had really been too long.

This moment still comes too soon.

He’s got time. A few minutes here to clear his head at most, just for him to mentally prepare. He didn’t think he’d be the one, in the end, but when it comes to the details of his existence, Jaebum’s learned to expect the unexpected. This is most definitely the unexpected, but because fate works in mysterious ways, he merely has a couple moments to process everything before he’s needed.

Jaebum lets his eyes flutter shut to take in the moment before, relaxing his body with a breath that never reaches his lungs. Once he’s exhaled and his lashes rise, he finds himself standing in the middle of a room illuminated only by the glow of the side-table lamp in the corner. Outside, the rain trickles in a rhythm of ominous beats against the windows.

The small room is decorated with knick-knacks and memories alike, portraits of young an old line the faded white paint of the walls, wind chimes dance by the window, and everything is basked in a feeling of home comfort.

Under Jaebum’s shoes the carpet of the senior citizens home crunches softly, his eyes traveling the space around him to know what kind of life this soul has come to lead. The pictures along the walls are filled with memories that only a fulfilled and happy life can bring - children running in the background, their children dancing in the park, dogs chasing squirrels, and a significant other blurring the lines of what true love actually is.

So much time has passed, but this life lived has been a good one. Now it’s time for his peace.

Next to the side-table sits a rocking chair that squeaks lightly back and forth with each rock, and next to that rocking chair is a green tank of oxygen that flows evenly through the thin tube. The breathing tube extends to where that rocking chair sits, and in that chair connected to the breathing tube is an old man taking his final breaths after reaching the end of his journey.

His eyes are closed as he rocks absentmindedly, and the effects of age have worn him down over the years. Skin now sagging in places it hadn’t before, lips pale and aching for moisture, hair thinned and nothing but grey, and where his eye whiskers once smiled prominently when he laughed rests a permanent set of wrinkles. In the distance, the song Jaebum’s come to hear in these moments has faded with age, the keys of the piano’s lullaby slowing its pace gradually over time.

Even with the cloud of age hanging over him, he’s still the same person he was before, every bit of the child Jaebum guarded with his life and the man he grew to love. Sixty three years have come and gone, and the man before Jaebum is everything he’s thought about since the moment of his father’s passing.

“Jinyoungie,” he whispers solemnly, crouching before the senior to get a better look at his face.

In an instant the man’s eyes are lifting gradually to search out the source of the voice which called out to him. It takes a brief moment, barely longer than the blink of an eye, for Jinyoung’s own to widen in complete surprise. The second of familiarity is evident the moment he recognizes Jaebum before him, straightening in his rocking chair with a denture-filled smile of glee.

Jinyoung’s voice has aged alongside his looks, scratchy and deeper than it was before. “It’s you.”

“It’s me.” His eyes are coated in a clear sheen, leaving Jaebum to swallow back the lump in his throat.

Jinyoung’s weak. He doesn’t have much life left in him, and it’s only minutes now to the inevitable. Alzheimer’s was always so painful to watch, but Jinyoung’s put up a worthy the fight the past seven years. The doctors didn’t think he’d live to see his eighty-fifth birthday, but he’d always been a fighter.

The last of the strength left in his muscles is used to guide a trembling hand to the side of Jaebum’s face, thumb rubbing circles over the perfect skin of his cheekbone.

“You’re just as beautiful as I remember.” Jinyoung smiles earnestly when Jaebum rests his hand on his own, holding it tighter to his cheek. “Not a day went by that I stopped thinking about you.”

Beaming down at Jaebum like the past had never happened, like the fight that sealed their fate was just a figment of their imagination, Jinyoung smiles earnestly, drinking Jaebum in like it’s the last time. And it is, Jaebum thinks, as he lets Jinyoung feel the moment between them. Despite Jinyoung’s old age there’s still a spark of life that explodes in hues of red and orange where their skin connects, as if their dance together had never come to an end.

Jaebum could be content to swim in this moment forever with Jinyoung by his side again, but then the older coughs, a rattling grumble in his chest that leaves him struggling for air. The sound is guttural and wet, reminding Jaebum that their fairytale life was never destined to be.

When Jinyoung calms down and begins to breathe easy again, he wipes the side of his mouth with his cardigan sleeve. His eyes are stranded in an air of understanding. “I guess you’re not here to read me a bedtime story.”

He was always so intuitive. Jaebum shakes his head, wishing that in another universe he could do it all over again. “No, not this time.”

Surprisingly, Jinyoung accepts the information of his impending death with ease, nodding along.

“How much time do I have left?”

The second hand of the timer ticks and ticks, dragging on incessantly. It’s reaching further towards the end now.

“Not long.”

It’s all too easy for Jinyoung to accept it, a painful smile biting at his cheeks. But then again, Jinyoung had always been good at believing the impossible. He sighs deeply, lost in the trull of Jaebum’s curious stare on him. He’s tired, waiting in the dull pain of what has become of him. He’s ready for it all to be over.

“I hope I lived a good life.”

“You lived the most amazing life one can live,” says Jaebum, fighting back the scratch in his trachea. His eyes catch on the frames scattered about the room, the family contained within their borders and the life Jaebum had missed out on. “I can see it in the pictures of your family. Your children, their children, your husband. Many would kill to have what you’ve been given.”

By picture definition, Jinyoung has lived the best life anyone could be offered. He found one person in all the world who loved him more than anything and created a beautiful family with him. While Jinyoung’s true love had parted years ago, he lives on in the three children they’d adopted together and the seven grandchildren they’d come to cherish more than words could say. From family and friends to traveling all over the world, Jinyoung was lucky enough to be handed the right deck of cards.

Jaebum’s no longer angry that the life he’d once had had been ripped away like it was nothing of value. It had happened slowly along the way as he realized he was taken from one life and given to another because what he was doing now was more important. The Powers That Be are a necessary evil, and Jaebum has let go of all the resentment he once felt towards them. He misses his previous life, but he doesn’t regret where’s he a now.

“I guess I did okay.” Jinyoung chuckles, watching the man he once cared for greatly with sad eyes. “Will he be waiting for me? Wonpil?”

“If that’s what you desire most, then yes.”

The life Jinyoung’s built here is beautiful to revel in, and Jaebum only feels a little envie that he couldn’t be a part of it. Jealousy is a foolish human emotion that Jaebum doesn’t miss, blinking in covetousness at the mention of the man who left Jinyoung a widower. He shouldn’t be; he’s happy that Jinyoung got to be loved in all the ways Jaebum couldn’t give him. Jinyoung deserved to be with someone who could give him a life, free from the pressures of the dead and the strain of not even existing.

“I loved Wonpil more than anything in the world. He was my soulmate,” Jinyoung admits, grinning to himself as he pictures their shared life together and the memories they’ve made. His head rocks to the side of the chair, voice soft with admittance. “But he was no you.”

The palm of Jinyoung’s hand has roughened around the edges from the years of wear, but if Jaebum closes his eyes, he can still imagine the softness of how it used to be. Taken back to their shared time together in Jinyoung’s old room, Jaebum threads their fingers together and pretends they never left.

“I forgive you, you know.”

Jaebum knows. He can see the forgiveness swirling around in Jinyoung’s tragically stunning brown eyes. After all the lies, the betrayal, and the pain Jaebum had caused, Jinyoung still found compassion in himself that Jaebum did not deserve. It takes all he has left in this moment not to fall to the ground and submit to the tears building. “I know.”

“Will it hurt?”

“It’s quicker than falling asleep.”

“Then you’ll stay with me?” Jinyoung’s own eyes blink back wetly, voice breaking upon exit. “You’ll stay until I fall asleep?”

Lost in the swirl of emotions, Jinyoung suddenly becomes six years old again, broken and lonely in the world that took his parents from him. The innocence he once carried like a shell paints his features in a new light of what had been. Jaebum caresses the discolored skin of Jinyoung’s hand; it will be any minute now.

“I promise.”

Just like the promise Jaebum was never supposed to make, the one that brought Jinyoung to him, the binding words ring soothingly in the air as the pair wait for the inevitable. Jinyoung smiles kindly, sharing more of his life with Jaebum to pass the time. Jaebum doesn’t say much, only listens feverishly, giving Jinyoung this last moment to himself.

Then, the music stops. The rain drags on.

Jaebum uses his fingers to shut Jinyoung’s eyelids, still gripping onto his fingers tightly. The warmth he’d chased for years is gone, leaving Jinyoung’s body a cold shell of what it once had breathed so exquisitely.

Sighing to himself dejectedly, Jaebum drops Jinyoung’s lifeless hand and stretches to his feet. Though his soul no longer occupies his body, Jinyoung’s form is still the thing of beauty, and Jaebum can’t resist leaning over to linger with one last kiss on his forehead. Jinyoung’s skin is cold to the touch where Jaebum’s lips hover, but somehow the gesture fills Jaebum with a sunny vibrance anyway. Jinyoung will always make him feel this way, it seemed.

After delicately brushing the grey strands out of the old man’s face, Jaebum stands straight and finds Jinyoung’s aged soul staring back at him fondly. Jinyoung bows his head, acknowledging the feelings that will never leave either of them. He’s content as the time finally comes.

Jaebum walks the few steps along the carpeted floor, extending his hand to Jinyoung, palm up.

“Are you ready to go to heaven?”

Jinyoung doesn’t have to say anything, Jaebum can read the answer in the desperate pull of his eyes and the eager tug of his lips as he nods. He’s been ready for a long time.

Silently, Jinyoung slips his wrinkled hand into Jaebum’s, the reaper giving Jinyoung one last moment to say goodbye to the wonderful life he’d built. When the older is ready, Jaebum sets their course as a familiar image comes to him.

In the blink of an eye the pair have arrived on the sidewalk in front of an out of date home sitting in the distance. It’s white paint and pillars are a reminder of the life that was ripped away so violently. Jaebum turns to Jinyoung as their hands fall apart - he recognizes it immediately.

“It’s my home.” He whispers, voice caught by the audible lump in his throat.

The old house his parents once owned, where Jinyoung spent the better part of his childhood laughing with his mom and dad as they gave every ounce of love they had to him. It’s the place he wants to be most in the world, where he can relive the happiest and most carefree time of his young life, and get back the moments he was never allowed to have.

A few feet before Jaebum now, Jinyoung watches in harmony of the bright colors that dance around him in the air. This is where he’s meant to be, it had always been here, with the people who cared about him most in the world. Wonpil will understand, and Jaebum will too.

Jaebum is content to let Jinyoung breathe in the moment to ready himself, but then Jinyoung is looking back at him, and he’s no longer the old man Jaebum had just carried through death. No, he’s the Jinyoung that Jaebum fell in love with, the twenty four year old with lively eyes and a youth that suffocated him.

It catches him off guard, stuck to the spot by the image of the person he’d given his everything to. He’d already accepted that he would never see this Jinyoung again, breath hitching when the now younger steps forward and leaves only a few inches between their bodies.

Jaebum can’t help but stare in awe at Jinyoung’s eternal beauty, drowning in the tug of Jinyoung’s joyous eyes. His touch is fiery where his reaches up to drag his thumb along Jaebum’s bottom lip.

“I’ll wait for you.” Jinyoung whispers, their noses barely touching. “Close your eyes.”

He’s quick to follow Jinyoung’s orders, left hanging in the air of whatever is to come. In the end, it’s the feel of Jinyoung’s lips pressing to his with a velvety softness, filling Jaebum with everything he’s ever felt for the man before him. Every ounce of love, every drip of anger, and every need to protect with his being.

Not for the first time Jaebum radiates with a warm glow as Jinyoung kisses him, losing himself in the way Jinyoung had offered to wait for him after all this time. He must see it too, that Jaebum’s time is close. He won’t be waiting long.

The next instant Jinyoung’s lips are gone from his and Jaebum’s left searching for the missing touch. When he opens his eyes Jinyoung is no longer in his line of sight, leaving Jaebum to wonder if he’s found his way home yet. Only, there’s a small tug on his coat from below, and when he glances down, there’s a tiny body peering up at him with an innocence only a child could own.

Smiling at the sight of six year old Jinyoung happily, Jaebum crouches down so they can see each other without disruption.

“My little Jinyoungie,” Jaebum says, brushing the child’s hair back out of his face. He’s overcome with feeling of a different love, the affectionate kind he used to hold for the child, when Jaebum was his protector and cared for him like he was his own brother.

Without warning Jinyoung throws his little body into Jaebum’s arms, tucking himself into the folds of his coat as he wraps his arms around Jaebum’s form. Jaebum laughs wholeheartedly, squeezing back with the rest of his love.

When Jinyoung pulls back it’s time for him to finally say goodbye, and Jaebum’s suddenly reminded of the picture that’s been burning a hole in his coat pocket for the better half of eighty years. He slides his hand into the space and produces the drawing that’s over three fourths of a century old, the same one Jinyoung had drawn of his family and begged Jaebum to deliver to his father. Jaebum could never carry the task out, but it doesn’t matter, because Jinyoung has the opportunity to deliver it himself.

“Goodbye, Jaebummie hyung.” Jinyoung takes the old image from his hands, his own clenched fist reaching out with something too. When Jaebum extends his palm Jinyoung lets a rounded green marble fall onto it just in time for the front door to swing open. Jinyoung’s face splits into a wide smile when his father appears in the doorway. He’d been waiting years for this moment too. “Appa!” Jinyoung cries in glee, dashing forward on wobbly legs to his eternal resting place.

Jaebum’s taken back to the moment he’d given Jinyoung the set of engraved marbles, marveling at the same ‘J’ etched into it from so long ago. He slips it into his pocket, watching on forlornly as Park Wooyoung eagerly lifts his son into his arms. Jinyoung clings desperately to his father’s shoulders, wrapping his legs around his waist as the pair diffuse into the feeling of being together again.

From around the corner a middle aged woman appears excitedly, and Jinyoung flings himself into her arms. It can only be his mother, gone from the world before Jinyoung even knew what the world was.

Feeling like he’s intruding on their reunions, Jaebum stands to let himself back to the plane of existence. Only Jinyoung’s father catches his eye, and when Jaebum turns back to him, the older man nods knowingly, a silent ‘thank you’ for taking care for Jinyoung all these years. Jaebum waves back and the doors closes behind them.

Jinyoung’s chapter has come to an end, but it’s not the last time Jaebum will get to read the story. They’ll see each other again, one day. In his pocket he rolls the green marble around with his fingers, realizing that maybe this was his true purpose in the world all along.

He was meant to die and become a reaper to lead Jinyoung through life when he needed him most, both when he was a naive child and a hopeful adult. It only made sense that Jaebum would be the one to deliver him to his eternal resting place, completing his life circle the way he was supposed to. Everything happens for a reason, and he wonders if the Powers That Be had ever intended for things to be this way.

It doesn’t matter, because they turned out for the better anyway. Jaebum’s time is almost up, now he just has to wait patiently until he can come home. He lets the marble drop, giving the Park house one last lingering glance.

“Goodbye, Jinyoungie.”

The song will play again.


End file.
